Wayne State's McGregor Memorial Conference Center has been returned to Minoru Yamasaki's original vision with the restoration of the outdoor reflecting pool and sculpture gardens. The nearly $2-million restoration project was completed recently, and Wayne State plans to rededicate the gardens in a ceremony at 5 p.m. Wednesday. The McGregor Center has long been considered by many to be among the finest buildings designed by Yamasaki, the Detroit-based architect best known for designing the World Trade Center towers in New York City. Yamasaki died in 1986. But the outdoor pool on the south side of McGregor proved problematic not long after the building was built in 1958. Leaks and other problems prompted Wayne State to finally drain the pool, and the pool remained empty and something of an eyesore for many years until the restoration project finally fixed the problems. The effort to restore it began in 2009, when art and engineering enthusiasts at WSU began to explore ways to do the work. That led to engineering studies and lobbying, and WSU trustees approved the project in early 2012. In Detroit, Yamasaki also designed what is now called the One Woodward office tower downtown, as well as other buildings on Wayne State's campus and elsewhere.

More than 3,500 students will participate in two Wayne State University spring commencement ceremonies on Thursday, May 9, 2013. The ceremonies, which will conclude the university's 145th academic year, will be held at Ford Field in downtown Detroit. Receiving honorary doctoral degrees will be famed Detroit folk singer Sixto Rodriguez and local businessman and community leader Walter E. Douglas. Rodriguez, who earned a bachelor's in philosophy from WSU in 1981, will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree for his musical genius and commitment to social justice. Douglas will receive a Doctor of Laws degree for his years of service to the city of Detroit and his many entrepreneurial achievements, as well as his devotion to philanthropy throughout the city and beyond. Douglas is chairman of the board and majority stockholder of Avis Ford, a Southfield Michigan automobile dealership. The ceremonies will be one of the last major university events for President Allan Gilmour, who will retire in June. Gilmour stepped in to lead WSU in 2010 on an interim basis and was unanimously voted in as the institution's 11th president in January 2011.

A feature story profiles Owiso Makuku, who joined the Detroit Revitalization Fellows program in 2011. The Wayne State University project is funded by the Kresge Foundation, Ford Foundation, Hudson-Webber Foundation and the Skillman Foundation matching rising professionals with organizations at the forefront of Detroit revitalization efforts. She worked for her first year in the Mayor's Office focusing on operational issues, economic planning and bus rapid transit while exploring ways to rethink many assumptions about municipal governance. Since August 2012, she has been working in New Center, with the State of Michigan, in the Governor's Office of Urban and Metropolitan Initiatives, helping to develop an Urban Agenda for Michigan, a renewed focus on the importance of Michigan's core cities.

Lyke Thompson, director of Wayne State University's Department of Urban Studies, commented in a story about how budget cuts, expired grants and shifted priorities have decimated Detroit's response to child lead poisoning. Detroit has some of the highest child lead poisoning levels among all large U.S. cities because of the city's older housing stock and the prevalence of lead paint usage in the 1970's and earlier. Thompson said someone needs to step in and pay for the missing gaps in lead response. "This will prevent huge downstream costs for Detroit children," Thompson said. "We're talking increased crime, decreased performance in school, decreased lifetime earnings. "We need to prevent this scourge from undermining the capacity of our kids." A companion story notes Wayne State University as a source.

Wayne State University Law School Dean Jocelyn Benson was a recipient of the 2013 Great Expectations Award presented during the Detroit NAACP's 58th annual Fight for Freedom Fund dinner held Sunday at Cobo Center. Prior to the event, Benson was an in-studio guest on WDIV talking about the honor.

Fox 2 provided on-site coverage of Sunday's March of Dimes annual March for Babies at Wayne State University. Thousands of families and business leaders joined the nation's oldest walk fundraiser honoring babies born healthy and those who need help to survive and thrive. Funds raised by March for Babies in Michigan help support prenatal wellness programs, research grants, newborn intensive care unit family support programs and advocacy efforts for stronger, healthier babies.

Older adults with the highest levels of depression and the lowest levels of social needs fulfillment experience higher levels of fraud, according to a new study from Wayne State University and the Illinois Institute of Technology. The schools advise clinical gerontologists in the field to be aware of older adults' needs for assessment of financial exploitation or its potential when working with highly vulnerable individuals. Financial exploitation of the elderly is on the rise according to the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, and the numbers are expected to continue to grow as Baby Boomers age. This exploitation, which includes telemarketing scams, fake home repairs, fake check scams, identity theft and more, costs approximately $3 billion each year. The study, "Is Psychological Vulnerability Related to the Experience of Fraud in Older Adults?" published in the recent issue of Clinical Gerontologist, is the first study to include prospective predictors of reported financial fraud victimization of older adults, and is the first to review financial exploitation of any kind with the same population from a psychological-vulnerability perspective. "This study illustrates how we can enhance our understanding of this major issue by performing a clinical analysis instead of one that stops at epidemiological or broad population-based reviews," said Peter Lichtenberg, director of WSU's Institute of Gerontology and lead author of the paper. "Those in the clinical study showed characteristics of extreme depression symptoms and perceived low social-status fulfillment, thus showing they were more vulnerable to the experience of theft of scams.

AskSupportNow isn't the first business launched by Brian Royster. The Wayne State University student ran a refurbished computer store, an enterprise he enjoyed running but didn't get rich off of. "I told myself the next time I start a business it would be a little bit more scalable," Royster says. "That's when I came up with (AskSupportNow's) help-desk concept. AskSupportNow is developing a software platform that provides IT services to small- and medium-sized businesses. The Blackstone LaunchPad-based startup's technology is unique because it focuses on pinpointing and solving IT problems before they happen. It accomplishes this through tracking things like hard-drive temperature or the condition of the system's RAM. "It reports all that information to let us know what's happening," Royster says. "It's a proactive solution."

Judge Damon J. Keith of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals will be honored Saturday with a 2013 Charles Hamilton Houston Medallion of Merit. The award will be presented in Washington, D.C., during Law Day 2013 by the Washington Bar Association and the Washington Bar Association Educational Foundation. The Medallion of Merit is presented annually in honor of Charles Hamilton Houston, one of the founders of the Washington Bar Association. Keith, for whom the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University Law School is named, is known for vigorously enforcing the nation's civil rights laws, most notably in the areas of employment and education.

"Marat/Sade," full title "The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade," is being performed at the Hilberry Theatre, 2 & 8 p.m., Saturday, 8 p.m. Thursday-Friday, through May 11. "Marat/Sade" celebrates the Hilberry Theatre's 50th anniversary as well as the play's 50th. Director Matthew Earnest and his cast of Wayne State University graduate students do "a decent job of plucking the show from the mothballs. There are eccentric moments to savor in the production, and many of them involve actors Jones and Sawson, both third-year students who are ending their Hilberry affiliation with this production."

The Wayne State University Law School Moot Court Outside Competitions Team recently wrapped up its 2013 season with one of the more successful years for the program. The team, made up of 10 junior members selected through competitive tryouts, travels to four different competitions that represent four different areas of the law. Some key changes took place this year in the lineup of competitions, and four teams were created, putting a greater emphasis on succeeding at competitions with "a heavier brief component than in prior years," said Kaitlyn Cramer, outside competitions director for the program. "I credit these changes, proposed by my fellow senior member coaches, as integral to our success, along with the amazing talent and depth of this year's squad," Cramer said.

An article notes that 88-year-old Broadway legend, Detroit native and New York icon Elaine Stritch will do an "Actors Studio"-like Q&A with those lucky enough to get tickets to the event at the Hilberry Theatre in Detroit this Saturday. Stritch will receive the 2013 Apple Award and participate in the interview hosted by the Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance.

On Sunday, April 28 at Wayne State University, thousands of families and business leaders will join together in the March of Dimes annual March for Babies - the nation's oldest walk fundraiser honoring babies born healthy and those who need help to survive and thrive. Registration begins at 8 a.m. with the 3.2 mile walk kicking off at 9 a.m. Funds raised by March for Babies in Michigan help support prenatal wellness programs, research grants, newborn intensive care unit family support programs and advocacy efforts for stronger, healthier babies.

Moriah Thomason, a developmental neuroscientist at Wayne State University and assistant professor of pediatrics, is doing groundbreaking research on brain connectivity in fetuses and children. Her research, which has the potential to lead to better understanding - and future treatment - of a range of conditions, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism and depression, is funded in large part by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Many of the expecting mothers Thomason sees as part of the WSU project are depressed - about 28 percent, which is much higher than average. A mother's depression can influence a child's chance of depression as well. In February, Thomason's innovative research appeared in Science Translational Medicine, a journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She scanned the brains of 25 fetuses between 24 and 39 weeks. She used functional magnetic resonance imaging to map the connections between various areas of the brain. This research is a collaboration between Wayne State's medical school and the NIH, which houses its Perinatology Research Branch at the university. NIH chose this location in 2002 because of Detroit's high number of pre-term births; and the agency recently announced it would renew the university's contract for another 10 years. Matt Lockwood, communications director at Wayne State University, says this is the only such lab in the country and the university is pleased the contract was renewed. "We're proud of it," he says. Roberto Romero, the obstetrician and gynecologist who heads the Detroit NIH branch, says Thomason's work will have "international impact." He says such research would be expected at universities like Harvard and Yale, but perhaps not at Wayne State. "This pioneering work is here in Detroit," Romero says. "People in Michigan should be proud."

Advaita, biotechnology startup spun out of Wayne State University, is one of 25 companies selected to participate in the new Michigan I-Corps program starting in May. Michigan I-Corps is a statewide program designed to foster, grow and nurture a statewide innovation ecosystem. Through partnerships between the National Science Foundation, Michigan universities, Michigan SmartZones, and venture capital and entrepreneurial communities, Michigan I-Corps will create an opportunity for businesses throughout the state to turn technology into commercial opportunities. Participating universities are Wayne State University, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Michigan Tech, Grand Valley State University, Western Michigan University, Central Michigan University, Northern Michigan University and Oakland University. Advaita was founded in 2005 by Sorin Draghici, a computer science professor in Wayne State University's College of Engineering. Advaita is the exclusive licensee of a patented technology developed at Wayne State and has developed a software application called "Pathway-Guide" that helps researchers and pharmaceutical companies understand the data resulting from gene expression experiments.

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) recently awarded an AACN Impact Research Grant to Margaret "Meg" Campbell, RN, PhD, FAAN, a nationally known expert in hospital-based palliative care and end-of-life issues. Campbell and her research team at Wayne State University, will investigate the potential for standardizing ventilator withdrawal for patients at the end of life. The study is designed to develop an empirically driven, nurse-led approach to patient comfort during the ventilator withdrawal process, reducing patient suffering and family distress. Nearly half a million patients undergo ventilator withdrawal each year, but there is little empirical evidence to inform this common procedure. With no accepted evidence-based best practices guiding ventilator withdrawal, clinicians rely on intuition, varying levels of experience or customary local practice. The researchers will compare outcomes for patients who received a new approach to patients who received usual care. Data from this research will be used to guide additional testing of the algorithm in a future randomized trial.

Erin Kelly, accepted to the Detroit Revitalization Fellows program - a Wayne State University project funded by Kresge Foundation, Ford Foundation, Hudson-Webber Foundation, the Skillman Foundation and Wayne State, was snapped up by NextEnergy, a nonprofit company focused on accelerating advanced energy technologies. Kelly's job at the organization is an almost perfect fit with her interest in the ecology of recalibrating the process of demolition staging in order to achieve the greatest net benefits for Detroit and Detroiters. "I am looking at how the demolition process is leveraged to create jobs and stabilize taxable property value in the city. I know we can attract investment and create jobs in Detroit by redirecting some of the material streams coming out of these structures. As a landscape architect I believe that demolition site selection must be driven by a thoughtful disposition process -- that the process itself should initiate from a consideration how the land is owned and managed once it is structure free."

Two Wayne State University researchers are working on a technique that could lead to easier, faster identification of cancer tumors that can be effectively treated by calcium channel-based therapies. Rod Braun, associate professor of anatomy and cell biology in the School of Medicine, recently received a two-year, $322,000 grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health to use manganese-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging to noninvasively determine the activity of different calcium channels in tumors. Braun and co-principal investigator Bruce Berkowitz, professor of anatomy and cell biology and ophthalmology, and director of the School of Medicine's Small Animal MRI Facility, are hoping the technique can be used to guide and individualize calcium channel-based treatment of cancer.

George Galster, professor of urban studies and planning at Wayne State University, and author of "Driving Detroit," commented about Dan Gilbert's influence as he continues to purchase property now totaling three million square feet of downtown commercial space.

New spinout companies from Michigan State University and Wayne State University are applying to the federal Small Business Innovation Research program this year to fund their different approaches to maintaining roads and bridges. Hwai-Chung Wu, associate professor at Wayne State and president of startup Reinforcement Innovations LLC, said his company incorporated last year out of more recent research that is evolving quickly. Testing about 18 months ago showed promising results on concrete columns that use a hybrid composite reinforcement instead of traditional steel reinforcements, he said -- the concrete didn't crack or speckle like steel-reinforced columns often do, and didn't compress as much. Wu's technology has applications for bridges and buildings, as well as precast concrete slabs and panels, building boards, concrete roofing tiles, concrete beams and trusses. Wayne State has a pending patent application for the reinforcement design and a method of applying it to structures. "The upfront material cost is somewhat higher than steel, but the maintenance cost over time becomes less because the strength of the structure it creates will make maintenance much less frequent," Wu said. "And there's no steel corrosion involved, because there's no steel."