College students present research projects on Capitol Hill

SALT LAKE CITY — They're studying Utah's rivers and wildlife. They're testing new and better ways to detect cancer. They're taking a hard look at their own school's efforts to curb carbon emissions.

And they're doing much of it with federal grants and support from private industry.

Undergraduate students from the state's two research schools, the University of Utah and Utah State University, presented their projects Wednesday at the Utah state Capitol.

Sydney Truong, a junior in bioengineering at the U., is working with researchers at the Huntsman Cancer Institute on micro-RNAs that control protein expression in human cells. Their study of several miRNAs shows that they seem to appear in large numbers in breast cancer cells.

The work, which is now extending to ovarian, prostate, pancreatic and lung cancer, could lead to a simple blood test for early detection of cancer.

"It would be less invasive than a biopsy," said Truong, who plans to continue doing clinical research as she considers going to medical school.

Across the Capitol rotunda, USU student Chris Martin presented the results of a study funded by the National Science Foundation that punches holes in his own university's attempts to become carbon-neutral by 2050.

He said that despite efforts to retrofit old buildings to make them more efficient and the construction of new buildings with energy-saving technologies, USU's energy consumption per square foot has not decreased in the past dozen years.

Assuming the Logan campus continues to grow, "That basically means Utah State's carbon footprint is getting ever larger," Martin said. Unless USU can take advantage of major technological advances in the coming years, it will likely have to look at purchasing carbon offsets to have a realistic chance of reaching its goal, he said.

Joyce Kinkead, associate vice president for research at USU, started the annual showcase 10 years ago.

"We were having the problem that the public and the Legislature didn't really understand that the research universities focus so much on teaching and learning," she said. The event shows how students learn hands-on, and "that makes them so much more employable and ready for grad school."

Other projects include studying how to turn Logan's wastewater lagoons into algae farms, the ethics of a business plan to make clothing out of bamboo, a device to fine-tune neuroprosthetic limbs and a compound that could treat children with congenital heart defects.

As Rep. David Butterfield, R-Logan, a former USU trustee, stopped to view the research posters, he said some of his colleagues might not appreciate the role of colleges as an "engine for economic development." Although he considers himself a "big-time fiscal conservative," he wondered if a third straight year of cuts to higher education would go too far.

"Our competitive advantage has always been innovation," Butterfield said. "I'm afraid we're on the verge of killing the goose that's laying the golden eggs."

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