Across Southeast Michigan, communities are reeling from the destruction caused by severe storms over the weekend. Images of flooded basements and cars submerged in water under freeway underpasses served as a reminder of Detroit’s poorly adapted infrastructure to increased instances of environmental disasters. Bill Shuster is professor and chair of the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Wayne State University. He says the storms that devastated Southeast Michigan over the weekend become more of a threat each year, but the aging infrastructure remains the same. “The burden just keeps getting larger and larger each time. It’s really about social and political will to make sure resources are available.” Shuster says fixing the state’s water infrastructure is doable from an engineering standpoint, but dependent on the resources given to communities by the government. “For any type of engineering design, we need the appropriate data to do this. This is not impossible, it’s not rocket science.” Shuster says improving infrastructure equitably in Southeast Michigan takes comprehension of its communities, and, “the way that we understand how water runs through American communities … so that we can then design the sustainability and resilience.” He says responding to climate change in infrastructure will take every aspect of environmental engineering, while arguably pulling in social work as well. “We’re training engineers for the future to take on these issues and we’re in the position of we need to pull together investment, infrastructure dollars that are guided by good data that’s translated by good contemporary engineering practice.”

Detroit was inundated with flooding this weekend and many are still recovering from the aftermath. Roads were flooded, cars were abandoned on freeways and basements were damaged — leaving residents devastated by what was lost and cannot be replaced. Your basement is flooded. Now what? First things first, local and statewide agencies have made it clear that residents should stay out of flood water, both in the streets and inside their houses. It can contain dangerous bacteria, sewage, oils and debris. If you do come in contact with it, make sure to wash up after, according to MDHHS. Be careful when inspecting the damage in your basement. Wear rubber boots that are only dedicated to flood cleanup when entering the water to avoid spreading bacteria, said Carol Miller, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Wayne State University. "Unfortunately there are many people with recurrent flooding," she said. "If you've had flooding, it's likely going to happen again and the best thing to do is to have a special set of rubber boots that you keep near the basement and you only use it when you're exposed to that floodwater." Power outages during flooding results in an increase in exposure to carbon monoxide,  an odorless, colorless and deadly gas. The CDC and Michigan Poison Center are warning people to never turn on generators, pressure washers or other gasoline, propane, natural gas, wood or charcoal devices inside your home or near an open window or door, as they produce hazardous levels of carbon monoxide. "People exposed to carbon monoxide may feel as if they have a cold or the flu," stated the warning issued by the Michigan Poison Center at the Wayne State University School of Medicine. "Flooding shouldn't be occurring in the first place and as an engineer, I would certainly be the first to say that there are engineering approaches that, when used in a sound fashion, can prevent this sort of flooding," Miller said. Multiple options are explored in detail in a recent study conducted by Wayne State University and the University of Michigan on household flooding in Detroit. Miller added that residents affected should develop a community or network of homeowners or renters in the area to pressure local government to "pay attention to these infrastructure problems."

Troy-based Skypersonic Inc., a drone and software company that began as a startup affiliated with the James and Patricia Anderson Engineering Ventures Institute at Wayne State University, announced it signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Red Cat Holdings in Florida, a drone technology company. Skypersonic produces unmanned aerial vehicles and navigation systems to enable inspection services in industrial spaces that lack GPS access or are restrictive, impractical, or dangerous for human inspection. Its technologies include Skycopter, a miniature drone encased in a spherical frame, and a trans-continental remote piloting platform, a software suite that enables the drone to record and transmit telemetry data while being operated from anywhere in real time. Wayne State has made an investment in Skypersonic of $350,000 over the last three years and is the company’s second-largest investor and only university investor. Skypersonic announced earlier this year it completed a flight in Detroit that was controlled from Florida in a partnership between Skypersonic and Red Cat.

Amesite Inc., a Detroit-based artificial intelligence software company, is making Warrior TechSource, a dedicated online learning platform for Wayne State University engineering alumni, available to other professionals in the automotive engineering and tech industries. The Amesite platform provides 24/7 access to fully online, on-demand courses with live instructors. The courses include the latest findings on every topic that professionals in the automotive engineering industry train on, including automation, robotics, and electromechanical engineering. Farshad Fotouhi, dean of engineering at Wayne State, says he believes there are three key needs in the auto industry, manufacturing, and other industries: electrification, autonomous technology, and connectivity. “In working with Amesite, we have access to the best technology with a partner that we trust,” says Fotouhi. “They customized to our needs and to our market. Artificial intelligence is critical in creating engagement and is important for us not only to build programs – but to build programs that people complete.”

Amesite Inc., a Detroit-based software company providing artificial intelligence-powered online learning ecosystems for businesses, higher education, and grades K-12, announced an expansion of its partnership with Detroit’s Wayne State University to offer six-week online certification courses. All the courses were created and delivered by Amesite. They are designed to target Wayne State’s alumni and members of the university’s community. The courses will cover autonomous vehicle technologies, data science, electric vehicle technologies, mobility as a service, and programming for autonomous systems. “We chose to partner with Amesite because they offer the most advanced online learning platform in the market today. The feedback from our students and instructors has been overwhelmingly positive,” says Farshad Fotouhi, dean of engineering at Wayne State.

Children have been less impacted by COVID-19 caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SAR-CoV-2) than adults. But some children diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 have experienced severe illnesses, including Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome (MIS-C) and respiratory failure; nearly 80% of children with MIS-C become critically ill with a 2 to 4% mortality rate. Currently, there are no methods to discern the spectrum of the disease’s severity and predict which children with SARS-CoV-2 exposure will develop severe illness, including MIS-C. Because of this, there is an urgent need to develop a diagnostic modality to distinguish the varying phenotypes of disease and risk stratify disease. To prevent children from becoming critically ill from SARS-CoV-2, a team of Wayne State University researchers led by Dongxiao Zhu, Ph.D., associate professor of computer science in the College of Engineering, are developing an artificial intelligence (AI) model to aid in the early detection of severe SARS-CoV2 illness in children.

Researchers at Wayne State University are working to bring micro-transit solutions to those who live in affordable housing so they can get to their jobs. The National Science Foundation is helping to fund the project. Micro-transit, which exists between traditional transit options such as buses and ride-hailing technology, is designed to complement public transportation. Detroit and other cities have begun to adopt the concept, the researchers say, as a means of increasing coverage and reaching more people, particularly in low-density or low-income areas. However, there is a shortcoming — the service often isn’t available on paths between areas of affordable housing and employment opportunities. “With the rise of artificial intelligence and increasingly available smart mobility data, the vision of this research project is to create a dynamic routing-prediction system based on learning the hourly mobility patterns between jobs and housing,” says Dongxiao Zhu, associate professor of computer science in the College of Engineering at Wayne State, and the project’s principal investigator. The researchers will design an artificial intelligence-assisted micro-transit system that transportation officials can deploy to better adapt to place and time variations in the mobility patterns of hourly workers. Geocoded socioeconomic data can be used to identify and reduce mobility disparities. “The research innovation is expected to provide immediate, low-cost, effective public transit solutions that benefit vulnerable communities in Detroit by significantly reducing transit risk, commute time and distance, and trip cost,” says Zhu.

A small, liquid-filled sensor can continuously and accurately measure heart and lung sounds, detecting cardiac problems or shortness of breath at an early stage, something which could warn heart failure patients of health deterioration and also help pick up early signs of infections such as Covid-19. Many of us own smart watches or fitness trackers, a large number of which now include heart rate monitors. However, while their accuracy has improved, they offer fairly limited information about heart health. They mostly measure heart rate by shining a green light through the skin, a method called photoplethysmography, which controversially works much better on lighter rather than darker skin. Heart sounds, such as those heard by a stethoscope, can give a more accurate picture of heart health as they can pick up inconsistencies of rhythm as well as rate. But have been historically harder to track using a wearable device. To try and get round this problem, Yong Xu, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Wayne State University, and his team have developed a small flexible sensor that can be worn continuously on the chest to measure heart and lung sounds. “Heart and respiration activities offer pivotal physiological and pathological information through mechano-acoustic signals. Continuous monitoring of these signals has the potential to significantly improve the diagnosis and management of many cardiovascular and respiratory diseases,” emphasizes Xu.

Wayne State University and the University of Detroit Mercy will co-host the Environmental Design Research Association’s 52nd annual conference May 19-23. Experts from around the world will explore how research, design and relationships between people and environments contribute to the creation of justice. Delivered in a virtual format, EDRA52 will bring together professionals from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds to examine topics surrounding the conference’s theme of just environments. The global conference features multiple keynote and plenary sessions, social and networking events, educational sessions, workshops and award ceremonies, as well as scholarship opportunities for students. EDRA52’s theme of just environments was developed in December 2019 by faculty from Detroit Mercy’s School of Architecture and Wayne State’s College of Engineering. “Attendees will learn that there is great collaboration among the Detroit urban universities, community groups, nonprofits and government organizations,” said Carol Miller, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of Healthy Urban Waters at Wayne State: Miller said she believes EDRA52 will appeal to individuals from a wide range of backgrounds, beliefs and disciplines. “EDRA52 Detroit covers technical issues from engineering and science, as well as humanistic issues from psychology, communication and other research areas,” Miller said. “People generally enjoy expanding their range of colleagues and learning from others.”

Michigan environmental law assigns responsibility for contamination not to the owners of the land, but to those who caused the pollution, however long ago, provided current property owners take some protective steps. Some 14,000 of the state's contaminated sites have no responsible party that can be identified — either it's unclear who caused it or those responsible no longer are around. That means the sites will fall to Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency EGLE or the EPA — taxpayers — to deal with as needed. And that number isn't likely to get reduced much anytime soon. Of those 14,000 sites, EGLE this year funded remediation activities at about 450. "Something is broken" in how Michigan handles its contaminated lands, said Carol Miller, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Wayne State University, a co-director of the university's Center for Leadership in Environmental Awareness and Research, or CLEAR. "There are more contaminated sites being left open than should be the case. The problem is dollars, and the problem is many, if not all, of these sites are legacy sites. Regulations against use of the sites, that doesn't solve the problem."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency  announced $50,000 in funding to two student teams in Michigan through its People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) grants program. The teams from University of Michigan and Wayne State University will receive funding to develop and demonstrate projects that help address environmental and public health challenges. The Phase I teams will receive grants of up to $25,000 each which serve as their proof of concept. Across the nation, this year's winners are addressing a variety of research topics including efforts to reduce microplastics waste and food waste, creating innovative and solar-driven nanomaterials, building a stand-alone water treatment system that can provide potable water for indoor use in single family homes, and removing PFAS from water using liquid extractions. These teams are also eligible to compete for a Phase II grant of up to $100,000 to further implement their design in a real-world setting. A student team from Wayne State University will research how green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) affects urban groundwater quality and flow by piloting a network of community-based groundwater monitoring stations surrounding GSI sites in Detroit.

The Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization (MTRAC) Innovation Hub for Advanced Computing at Wayne State University recently awarded a combined $270,000 in funding to three transformative innovation research projects led by Wayne State researchers. These projects aim to tackle deep technology opportunities in high impact sectors, such as artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning, augmented reality (AR) and intelligent automation. The three Wayne State projects funded by the hub focused on transformational innovations that have the potential to bring disruptive solutions to the market in their respective fields. Wayne State’s Office of the Vice President of Research and Technology Commercialization office have been instrumental in advancing the early-stage technologies derived from the research enterprise toward commercialization. Under the leadership of Joan Dunbar, associate vice president for Technology Commercialization, their operations have leveraged an ecosystem of funding, mentoring and connections to industry experts to provide comprehensive support to address the cultural, technological and financial challenges associated with the translation of innovative early-stage technologies from academia to the marketplace. “We are extremely excited to have the commitment of a world-class oversight committee to guide the development and application of these research-derived innovations,” said Dunbar. “The funding and mentorship provided by the MTRAC program are key to achieving milestones toward ultimate commercialization of the projects and societal impact. The support of the MEDC is critical to these programs."

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on initiatives to collect data and start developing national standards for less lethal weapon safety after a Boston student’s death in 2004. Funding dried up after a few years, and the efforts died. Against that backdrop, Congress has shown little interest in regulating bean bags and rubber bullets. And national law enforcement leadership groups have repeatedly punted when given an opportunity. NIJ awarded grants to a Wayne State University researcher, Cynthia Bir, to help develop standards. Over several years, study groups were formed. Testing modes were developed. Then, according to Bir, Tasers and other equipment became more widely used by police. As interest in rubber bullets and bean bags waned, the Great Recession depleted funding. Research efforts dissolved along with prospects for standards for less lethal weapons. “NIJ gave us a fair amount of funding to look at this issue and then … the focus switched to Tasers,” Bir said. “Everything just kind of went away.”

Detroit’s Wayne State University College of Engineering is launching four academic programs in time for the fall semester: Bachelor of Science in information technology; Bachelor of Science in welding and metallurgical engineering technology; Master of Science in robotics; and Master of Science in environmental and sustainability engineering. For the bachelor’s in information technology, WSU is realigning curricula that was split between three programs in the College of Engineering and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; the latter previously offered Bachelor of Arts in computer science and information systems technology. The new streamlined program housed within the College of Engineering’s department of computer science will offer an updated and improved degree to more than 900 students with majors across the three programs. “Adding these programs allows us to diversify our curricula and remain on the forefront of industrial and societal trends,” says Farshad Fotouhi, dean of the College of Engineering. “Students at Wayne State will greatly benefit from new educational and research opportunities that will ensure relevancy of their skills when they graduate.”

Sarcoidosis is an inflammatory disease of unknown causes that affects multiple organs in the body. It occurs in patients around the world and is highly prevalent in Detroit and Michigan. It is characterized by abnormal masses or nodules – granuloma formations – in various organs, including lungs and lymph glands, brains and heart. Sarcoidosis has been described for more than 150 years, but there are no specific and simple tests developed to diagnose this disease. A team of researchers led by Lobelia Samavati, M.D., associate professor in the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics and Department of Internal Medicine at Wayne State University’s School of Medicine, has been working for more than 10 years to discover specific serological biomarkers of sarcoidosis and tuberculosis. With the help of a recent $1.98-million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, Samavati’s research team aims to advance their work of developing biomarker technology for identification of biomarkers of sarcoidosis. “We believe that our technology will be able to harness the diversity of antibodies and can aid to identify protective antibodies in various diseases in humans, including viral respiratory infections such as the corona virus,” said Samavati. “We believe that this study is the beginning of new era to identify protective immunity in form of antibodies.” Sorin Draghici, the Robert J. Sokol, M.D. Endowed Chair in Systems Biology in Reproduction and professor of computer science in Wayne State’s College of Engineering, is collaborating with Samavati. He contributed to the design of the study and will supervise the data analysis.

Tracie Baker wasn’t sure what tools she would need for the dissection. Baker, an environmental toxicologist at Wayne State University, studies the presence and effects of toxins and endocrine-disrupting compounds in water. She’d cut up fish before, but never anything quite like the tangled mess of fats, oils, grease, and trash that had arrived in her lab. It was two 10-pound chunks of fatberg, taken from a massive sewer-clogging bolus. Baker figured she’d need gloves, probably the thick rubber kind people use for washing dishes, and elbow-length seemed safest. Beyond that, she says, “We weren’t exactly sure what was going to work.” Baker and her colleagues were trying to learn as much as they could about the fatberg, which had been hauled from a sewer in Clinton Township, a suburban Michigan community about 25 miles northeast of Detroit in Macomb County, while it was still fetid and fairly fresh. When they were done, it would be enshrined in a new exhibit at the Michigan Science Center. Pieces of the fatberg were worth keeping around for analysis because “so few fatbergs have been characterized,” Baker says. With the exception of a handful extracted in London, studied with gas chromatography or forensically prodded in front of television cameras, the usual approach to them is, “Let’s get this out of here, throw it in the trash, and move on,” Baker says. Along with her Wayne State colleague Carol Miller, a civil and environmental engineer, Baker applied for National Science Foundation funding to take a closer look at the Macomb County fatberg. The team wanted to know exactly what the mess was made of and how it might affect the ecosystem both inside and outside of the sewer.

We’re getting a clearer picture of what’s causing the green ooze toxic contamination that is flowing from the closed Electro-Plating Services site in Madison Heights and onto I-696. State and federal officials have said rainwater and groundwater flowing through a vat in the basement caused Hexavalent Chromium to leak out. Bill Shuster takes it a step further telling 7 Action News, “This water is picking up the contaminants that are still in the soil there.” Shuster is the Chair of the Wayne State University Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. The EPA spent $1.4 million to do a massive cleanup inside the facility after the state shut it down in 2016. How much contamination was left behind? Shuster speculated, “We would have to look at the data and analyze what’s in the affluent. Well, the gut instinct there was quite a bit left in there.” Shuster says the green ooze is colored by a marker added to the cancer causing Hexavalent Chromium. And he says options to prevent trouble after the cleanup included excavating the vat, making sure it is not coming in contact with groundwater and he says, “I probably would have capped it, ensured that water wouldn’t be getting in from the top. Into the pit. I can’t criticize EPA or MEDQ EGLE but if I was in charge, these are the things I would be looking at.”

According to the Diabetes Research Institute Foundation, the disease is increasing at an alarming rate in the United States, with an estimated 30.3 million people currently with diabetes. Oral insulin is potentially prescribed to patients diagnosed with diabetes to improve their quality of life. However, current oral protein formulations of insulin face multiple obstacles during their gastrointestinal transport and absorption, resulting in lower therapeutic benefits. This includes difficulty penetrating the intestinal mucus layer and the epithelial cell layer to reach the blood. While scientists have made improvements in mucus-penetrating and absorption-enhancing technologies, current oral doses of protein drugs to treat diabetes remains low in absorption and bioavailability, and can increase the risk of leaky gut, autoimmune disease, bacterial infections and inflammatory bowel diseases. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a safe and efficient oral delivery technology that will enhance protein transport, and to increase oral insulin with high bioavailability. With the help of a $1.7 million grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health, a team of researchers in Wayne State's College of Engineering will explore ways to address these issues. "The goal of our project is to develop a highly promising oral insulin that will be a life-changing treatment for diabetes patients," said Zhiqiang Cao, Ph.D., associate professor of chemical engineering and materials science, and graduate program director in the College of Engineering at Wayne State University. "We also hope to develop knowledge of how our delivery platform can address multiple barriers for oral protein delivery above and beyond insulin. This will have the potential to impact and enhance a broad range of oral protein drugs." Cao and his collaborators will aim to develop a mechanism for a novel insulin delivery system that effectively address the above issues.

Armed with care packages, clothes and clinical supplies, medical students in Detroit are learning outside the classroom. They are putting their knowledge and boots to the pavement, providing free health care to the city's homeless. Each week, students under the supervision of a registered physician or nurse practitioner get on their bikes and look for those in need. Programs such as Michigan State University's Detroit Street Care, Wayne State University's Street Medicine Detroit and the University of Michigan's Wolverine Street Medicine work together to treat as many of the city's homeless as possible. Jedidiah Bell, a fourth-year med student at Wayne State University and president of Street Medicine Detroit, says seeing issues from lack of health care access in his home country of Zimbabwe made him want to participate. "When I moved to the states for university and medical school, I saw the similar things [lack of access] with the homeless population," said Bell. "When I saw street medicine, I appreciated the model of how can we take medical care to the street and build up trust to bridge the gap between the homeless and the medical world." While the programs provide a vital service to the community, Bell says the real-world experience teaches students things the classroom or clinic can't. "It teaches medical students to hone-in on, not just medical conditions of patients, but to be able to sit down and form relationships and discuss other things that might be contributing to [patients'] health but might not come up during a traditional medical encounter." Bell says there's a widespread belief that the "students take away more from people on the streets than they take away from us." Anneliese Petersen, a second-year medical student at Wayne State University and volunteer with Street Medicine Detroit, says the experience also shows upcoming medical professionals another side of health -- the social determinants. "Things that are not strictly medical-based but have a strong impact on health and well-being. Income, access to health care, access to medication, being able to eat well, sleep well, to be able to relax and not be under chronic stress."

Danish toymaker Lego is testing a new way for customers to return their unwanted bricks in an effort to move closer to its goal of switching to 100 percent sustainable materials in the next decade. U.S. customers can now print out a mailing label on its site, dump their used Lego bricks in a box and ship them off for free, the company announced. The pieces will be cleaned, put in a box and given to Teach for America, a nonprofit that will donate them to classrooms across the United States. Some bricks will be sent to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston for its after-school programs. In 2015, the Lego Group announced its ambition to use 100 percent sustainable materials in both its bricks and packaging by 2030. Now the company is speeding up that plan, announcing that it's aiming for 100 percent sustainable packaging by 2025 in an effort to make a "positive impact on the lives of children, our colleagues, our community and the planet." Plastic does not disintegrate. It breaks into smaller pieces, called microplastics, and can be eaten by animals and fish, putting their health at serious risk. It's a problem in all bodies of water, from the oceans to the Great Lakes. Earlier this year, Wayne State University was given a $1 million grant to hopefully find a solution to microplastics.