Presidential Search Advisory Committee to meet Friday
The Arkansas State University Presidential Search Advisory Committee will meet this Friday, Aug. 6, at 10 a.m. in the ASU System Office, 2004 E. Nettleton Ave., Jonesboro. Dr. Tom Meredith, search consultant, will meet with the committee.

2010 Summer Commencement set for Friday
Almost 500 graduates will be awarded diplomas during Arkansas State University’s 2010 summer commencement ceremony, Friday, Aug. 6, at 7 p.m. in the Convocation Center. Brittany Nicole Wilson of Newport, who is graduating summa cum laude and is a University Honors Scholar, is the featured commencement speaker. Wilson is graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences. The commencement ceremony may be viewed online with a 384k or greater Broadband required connection. To view the stream, Windows users may use Windows Media Player, by opening the File URL at mms://streamer.astate.edu/asutv. For Mac users, use Quicktime, and open the File URL at mss://streamer.astate.edu/asutv. Installation of Windows Media Components for Quicktime (by Flip4Mac) can be located at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx.

Dr. Saarnio, Brinkley present poster at national conference
Dr. David Saarnio, Psychology, and Christy Brinkley, both from the Office of Behavioral Research and Evaluation (OBRE) in the College of Education and ABI, recently presented a poster at the 2010 National Training Institutes in Washington, DC. Co-authors on the poster were Cindy Crusto (from the Yale University School of Medicine) and Stephen Fielding (from the Children’s Institute at the University of Rochester). The poster focused on insights and lessons learned from evaluating Systems of Care for children with severe emotional disturbances. The Training Institutes is a national, biennial conference, sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA), providing program, research, and evaluation information on Systems of Care.  OBRE has been involved with the Arkansas System of Care (ACTION for Kids) for more than 4 years. Visit OBRE online for more information on OBRE and ACTION for Kids. (From left, Cindy Crusto, David Saarnio, Christy Brinkley, and Stephen Fielding.

ASU Ringers perform at national convention in Nashville
The ASU Ringers, under the direction of Dr. Ellis Julien, professor emeritus, Music, recently performed a 40-minute showcase concert at Pinnacle, the national convention of the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers (AGEHR), in Nashville, Tenn. They earned this honor by submitting for audition the entire DVD of their 2009 spring concert in Riceland Hall. One of the works featured on their program was an original composition entitled “Cascading Waters” by Dr. David Gilmore, Environmental Biology, and long-time member of the ensemble. Other members of the ensemble were ASU students Meagan Conley, Christy McElroy, Jon Stevenson, Rylan Williams, and John Yerger, alumni Amy Dennis, Ashley Hall, Jennifer Hall, Ben Light, Jonathan Monroe, and Tommy Russell, ASU staff member Andrew Bleignier, and Jonesboro resident Jenny Shell.

Dr. Medina-Bolivar, colleague, publish paper
Dr. Fabricio Medina-Bolivar, Plant Metabolic Engineering, ABI/Department of Biological Sciences, and colleague Dr. Danielle Julie Carrier, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville (UAF), produced the peer-reviewed paper, “Purification of resveratrol, arachidin-1, and arachidin-3 from hairy root cultures of peanut and determination of their antioxidant activity and cytotoxicity.” The study was published in the journal Biotechnology Progress. The paper is based on the research of Dr. Medina-Bolivar, and first author in the study is master's degree student Julie A. Abbott of UAF. The work focuses on the application of a novel purification method to obtain pilot scale quantities of arachidin-1 and arachidin-3 produced in hairy root cultures developed at the Medina-Bolivar laboratory. Arachidin-1 and arachidin-3 are natural resveratrol analogues that are particularly valuable due to their chemical properties and potential applications in drug discovery. These compounds are not commercially available. Earlier this year, Dr. Medina-Bolivar and his research team received a U.S. patent covering the bioproduction of these compounds. With the technology described in this paper, these compounds are now being purified at sufficient quantities and tested in neuroprotective and anticancer bioassays. This collaborative research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation's Arkansas-EPSCoR P3 Center for Plant-Powered Production.

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