Organ donation campaign on college campuses Wayne State University marketing student Rebecca Joy Butler was only 20 years old when her life was cut short by illness. After waiting in vain for a lung transplant, she died in May 2011. In honor of her life, Rebecca's parents, Beverly and Tim Butler, an associate business professor, are leading the 2012 WSU Gift of Life Campus Challenge to increase organ donations. Last year, School of Medicine students coordinated a smaller challenge. This year, Tim Butler is serving as a faculty advisor of sorts for the statewide campus campaign. Tim and Beverly Butler joined Craig Fahle to talk about the push to give the Gift of Life on college campuses. They are hoping a friendly competition among colleges will energize the campaign.

A team of Wayne State University graduate students and their unique energy-harvesting technology has won the $50,000 first prize in the Michigan Clean Energy Venture Challenge, judges announced Friday. The annual challenge, established by the University of Michigan and DTE Energy, encourages students from Michigan colleges and universities to grow clean-energy solutions into thriving businesses. The first place team Piezo PowerTech developed a device that can generate electricity from vibrations - mechanical energy that would otherwise be wasted. While the technology has broad applications, the team is focusing first on the tire pressure sensor market. The team's technology could extend the lifetime of these sensors and eliminate waste from dead batteries. Said Piezo PowerTech team member Yating Hu, a doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering at Wayne State: "We enjoyed this competition and learned a lot from it. Now it is time for us to push our business to a higher level."

A new study to be published in the Journal of Business Ethics finds that ethical concerns among future business leaders are at a 30-year high, but that the nature of their concerns has shifted considerably. Wayne State University Professor Richard Beltramini, School of Business Administration, co-author of the report, joins Craig Fahle to discuss his findings.

Vishwanath Sardesai, professor of surgery in Wayne State University's School of Medicine, has published the third edition of his book "Introduction to Clinical Nutrition." The 32-chapter book covers the role of nutrition in epigenetics and telomere length - the DNA fragments protecting the ends of chromosomes from deterioration - as well as personalized nutrition and personalized medicine. The book, Sardesai said, is designed to serve as a textbook and reference source in clinical nutrition for medical students, students in osteopathic medicine and dentistry, and practitioners in the fields of medicine, dentistry nutrition, dietetics, nursing, pharmacy and public health.

Gov. Rick Snyder's higher education budget proposal doesn't do a good enough job in establishing performance standards for Michigan's 15 public universities, the Business Leaders for Michigan said Wednesday. In testimony before the state Senate's higher education subcommittee, the group laid out its recommendations for funding higher education. Under Snyder's plan, the universities would be competing for the same pot of money. Grand Valley State University would be the clear winner, with an increase in state aid of nearly 7 percent. Wayne State University would receive only a 0.91 percent increase under the plan.

An Ingham County judge's order Wednesday invalidating the decisions of financial review teams for Highland Park schools and the city of Detroit sparked disagreement Wednesday about what happens next. Ingham Circuit Judge William Collette ruled the review teams' actions, including a recommended emergency manager for the Highland Park district, were invalid because the state-appointed panels met in secret, violating the Open Meetings Act. Wayne State University constitutional law professor Robert Sedler said part of the Open Meetings Act allows a judge to invalidate decisions made by a public body if the court finds that failure to comply with the law has "impaired the rights of the public." The act also has a do-over provision that allows a public body to repeat their decision-making process in compliance with the law, he noted.

A local research firm is getting an influx of cash to study a promising new treatment for the most common cause of blindness in seniors. CEO Sean Ainsworth of Retro Sense Therapeutics says they're studying how a gene in algae can help some who suffer from dry Macular Degeneration. "There are about a million with the advanced form of the disease, there are some estimates of up to about eight million with the disease in total. We would expect we would be applicable to the most advanced stages," said Ainsworth. The use for the gene was discovered by a researcher at Wayne State University. Retro Sense is getting a $250,000 grant from The Foundation Fighting Blindness to continue the research.

Annoying, frustrating symptoms like difficulty hearing or remembering things can complicate everyday living for multiple sclerosis patients, but most research to date has focused on the disease's less frequent but more debilitating consequences. Recently, however, an increasing number of patients have expressed their desire for a better quality of life between relapses, as the body attacks its own central nervous system, which can cause blindness or the inability to use a limb. "Everyone reacts more strongly to changes that are big rather than subtle changes that occur every day," said Alexander Gow, professor in Wayne State University's Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics and School of Medicine's departments of pediatrics and neurology, who recently received a one-year, $114,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop a new model system that focuses on the latter.

If Hispanic students don't succeed in school, the U.S. can kiss its world-superpower status goodbye. That's the message writer and scholar Ethriam Cash Brammer wanted more than 450 teens to understand Tuesday. By 2050, the Hispanic population is projected to surpass Caucasians to become the predominant ethnic group in the U.S. By that logic, Latinos would also comprise a huge segment of the American workforce. "We can almost guarantee our standing in the world will fall," if graduation rates among Hispanic students do not rise, Brammer said. "We're already slipping. We're slipping every year." Brammer's speech closed the annual Hispanic Youth Leadership Conference - where West Michigan middle and high school students visited with college recruiters and attended workshops on career exploration, managing money and strengthening relationships. Brammer is the associate director of the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies at Wayne State University.

A study by psychologists at Wayne State University is referenced in a blog about celebrating Valentine's Day with another couple as opposed to a single date. The study says that a double-date can spice up your love life finding that when couples engaged in intense, personal discussions with other couples in a controlled laboratory setting, they left feeling not only closer to their new friends, but to their own romantic partners. The couples also reported learning new things about their partners, and described feelings of novelty.

Craig Fahle discussed the history of the Republican Party in Michigan with Wayne State University Department of History Chair Marc Kruman.

An article highlighting the work of the late Dr. Charles F. Whitten, a respected Detroit pediatrician known for his expertise and work related to Sickle Cell Disease, includes commentary from Wayne State University faculty and physicians who remember his legacy. The National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine acquired the papers of Dr. Whitten, who was a distinguished professor of pediatrics at Wayne State University. Joseph Dunbar, associate vice president for research at WSU, said the acquisition of Whitten's papers by the National Library of Medicine showed a great recognition of the doctor's work. Additionally, Dr. Robert Frank, executive vice dean for the WSU School of Medicine, praised Whitten for bringing a post baccalaureate program to the school. A video is included.

Older people who eat properly are likely to live longer. That's the implication of a study looking at mortality and eating habits among a cohort of nearly 4,000 people 65 and older, according to Dr. Luis Afonso of Wayne State University. After an average follow-up of 13 years, participants with a good diet had lower rates of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, compared with those who had a poor diet, Afonso and colleagues reported in the Feb. 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

The Detroit Jazz Festival is starting 2012 with a concert featuring the sacred works of Duke Ellington. This concert, which will be held on Feb. 19, is the first event under new artistic director, native Detroiter, and professor of jazz studies at Wayne State, Christopher Collins. The performance will feature world-renowned conductor David Berger, as well as many distinguished performers. Ticket information is provided.

Annoying, frustrating symptoms like difficulty hearing or remembering things can complicate everyday living for multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, but most research to date has focused on the disease's less frequent but more debilitating consequences. Recently, however, an increasing number of patients have expressed their desire for a better quality of life between relapses, as the body attacks its own central nervous system, which can cause blindness or the inability to use a limb. "Everyone reacts more strongly to changes that are big rather than subtle changes that occur every day," said Alexander Gow, Ph.D., professor in Wayne State University's Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics and School of Medicine's departments of pediatrics and neurology, who recently received a one-year, $114,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop a new model system that focuses on the latter.

TechTown President and CEO Leslie Smith Friday joined a delegation of 30 business leaders in Detroit to participate in a small business roundtable at the White House in Washington, D.C. The half-day business leader discussion was organized by the White House Business Council and Business Forward. The purpose: to stimulate a meaningful dialogue about the challenges and opportunities associated with economic revitalization in Southeast Michigan and other urban areas nationwide. "This roundtable sets the stage for Detroiters to demonstrate to federal officials that we have a cadre of committed professionals who are effectively collaborating to move the region's economic agenda forward," Smith said.

The Wayne State University School of Medicine has appointed two interim chairs: Dr. Omar Khan, in the department of neurology, and Dr. Brian O'Neil, in emergency medicine. Khan is the director of WSU's Multiple Sclerosis Center, one of the largest MS treatment centers in the country, with a patient population of more than 4,000. Khan also heads the school's MRI analysis laboratory, which studies degenerative disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.

The Wayne State University men's and women's teams claimed titles at the 2012 Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) Swimming and Diving Championships. The WSU men outdistanced Grand Valley State University by a tally of 872-801 to win their second-straight GLIAC crown and their fifth in the last seven years. The Warrior's women's team won its third-straight Conference title and sixth in the last seven years.

Wayne State University swimmer Catherine Leix is getting one more shot at the Division II national meet. Leix, a fifth-year senior, secured her spot at the nationals for a fourth straight year while helping the Warriors win their second-consecutive GLIAC conference title over the weekend. Both the women's and men's teams from Wayne State won the conference meet, both repeating as champions in the GLIAC. If Leix finishes in the top eight at nationals, she'll earn All-American honors. Something she's been able to do every season since her sophomore year at Wayne State. A photo of Leix is included.

Alicia Nails, director of Wayne State University's Journalism Institute for Diversity, responds to Detroit News columnist Nolan Finley's Feb. 5 opinion piece "If life's cheap, murder's not news." She writes: "I'm compelled to reach beyond the simplistic "tisk-tisk" hurled at Detroiters for engineering a world in which they are not richer, more drug-free, more learned, with more stable families … and oh, yes … have more hope. I hope the thinkers among us move from emotional condemnation to thoughtful analysis."