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 Tanaka Undergraduate Research Scholarship
After John Tanaka retired from 40 years of teaching inorganic chemistry at the University of Connecticut in 2006, he remembered the school that gave him his start in higher education.
The Tanaka Undergraduate Research Scholarship was created for second- to fifth-semester students to do experiments and work in the SDSU chemistry labs. His gift magnifies Tanaka’s commitment to science and discovery. Tanaka taught at SDSU from 1956 to 1963. In that time, he made a significant impact on his students, including Dr. Vern Schramm ’63, the chairman of Biochemistry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, whose own research has led to trials of drugs for cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Another former Tanaka student, Distinguished Alumnus Craig Schnell ’65, a pharmacy graduate, is the vice president and provost at North Dakota State University. “I was extremely impressed that he cared a lot about students,” Schnell said of Tanaka. “He kept students interested in working.”
Schnell took his class as a sophomore and was a teaching assistant in the class’s lab the next year. Schnell says Tanaka recruited students “without a heavy sales pitch, but just by example. If you needed help, he was there to help you.”
A half-century later, he is still helping students. Tanaka is part of a growing trend of individuals and companies that are providing financial resources to impact research at South Dakota State University. |
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 Hoping for ‘one of those great discoveries’
Rollins and LeVuo Juhnke created the Juhnke Research Fund in 2006 to provide pharmacy faculty with the resources needed to help conquer health-related problems through research. Rollins ’55 is an SDSU pharmacy graduate; LeVuo is a former research nurse associated with the Mayo Clinic.
His positive experience as a student in Brookings was part of the couple’s motivation to create the fund. “I just hope our gift will help lead to one of these great discoveries; something that will turn around a disease like cancer or diabetes,” Rollins said.
The Juhnkes have demonstrated incredible foresight in providing money for research that could have far-reaching consequences for so many people. Their investment is the ultimate compliment to our faculty who are actively engaged in research,” said Dean Brian Kaatz of the SDSU College of Pharmacy. “Rollins and LeVuo are wonderful supporters who clearly understand the value and the possibilities for research. We are deeply grateful for their passion to influence the future."
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 Partnership provides hands-on experience for grad students
Mid-West Seed Services, headed by 1982 agronomy alumnus Tim Gutormson, contributes $10,000 annually to support the lion’s share of a native species graduate assistantship in the Biology Department.
The 14-year-old Brookings company conducts seed testing on hundreds of species. Kevin Kephart, SDSU’s vice president for research, says companies that fund graduate assistantships generally do so for two reasons: “It allows a company to work in conjunction with the University on a problem or an opportunity of particular interest to that company.”
Companies with a graduate assistant on the payroll also are able to groom a future employee.
“The University is benefitting from gifts by private individuals and companies to support the work of research,” Kephart says. “South Dakota State will continue to compete for state and federal grants to sustain these projects, but private funding—in the form of annual gifts or endowments— will play an increasingly critical role in the years ahead as the scope of our research expands.” |
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 Larson gift: Leaven in the dough
Bill and Rita Larson’s gift to the Animal and Range Science Department can be equated to salt and molasses.
Just like salt and molasses make up only a small portion of typical cattle feeds, yet are of vital importance, so is the Larsons’ gift to the department. Since 2001, the Colorado couple has been donating $50,000 per year to the Department.
The Beef Nutrition Program Fund award has gone to Distinguished Professor Robbi Pritchard, who says, “I know I wouldn’t be here if he [Larson] hadn’t done that. I am pretty sure, looking at the struggles that go on at land-grant universities, there would be serious concerns about the research program we have if we didn’t have that money to help us do our research.”
Not a one-man project
Pritchard is involved in a half-dozen active research projects that require five full-time employees and eleven students.He explains that those positions are grant supported.
“I use that [Larson money] as the buffer. Most of our cattle research is on things that can be directly applied in the industry and that kind of external funding is short-term grants. You have a problem with keeping people employed if you have any down time. We can get a couple hundred thousand [dollars] per year in grants, but also there can be gaps between funding.
“Without a guarantee that we can keep people employed, we couldn’t justify trying for those grants. We would have to change the focus of our research,” Pritchard says.
Funds from the Beef Nutrition Award also support graduate student research projects and travel to present research findings at scientific meetings, as well as data collection from the Opportunities Farm near Lennox.
Employees manage the feedlot, prepare all the experimental feeds, do laboratory and data analysis, and coordinate logistics for the four-day feedlot short course, including the purchase of cattle for feedlot operators to learn from, Pritchard reports. The SDSU feedlot has a 650-head capacity, which is turned over a couple times a year and, if market conditions permit, is kept at capacity.
“These are experimental pens, so the number of batches of feed, all of the paper trail, and all of the processing they do on cattle, they do as much as if they had a 15,000-head feedlot,” Pritchard says.
Larsons value SDSU research
“Bill Larson is a big part of what makes this happen. He wanted to do something to be sure we would be able to keep doing the things we were doing. We were fortunate that somebody recognized our efforts,” the professor declares.
Bill and Rita ’02 Larson, both Lake Preston natives, own and operate the Apishipa Ranch, a beef operation near Fowler, Colorado, and are co-owners of Midwest PMS, which specializes in feedlot nutrition and supplements.
Larson earned three degrees in animal science at SDSU—bachelor’s (1964), master’s (1967) and doctorate (1969). |
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 A better way to fight cancer
Marek Malecki was completing his physician’s residency in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1978 when he saw the need for diagnosis and therapy of diseases at the molecular level.
So he went back to school to earn his doctorate in molecular biology and to focus on biotechnology-based therapies, which would rely on the genetic mechanisms of the human body. “I thought I would go back to practicing medicine after a year or two in science,” he says.
Now, twenty-five years after gaining his doctorate summa cum laude, he continues a career as a biotechnology researcher. Since January, that career has been at SDSU. Funds from Rollins and LeVuo Juhnke (see page 27), are helping him to start up his laboratory.
He also is completing grant applications for funding from the Department of Defense, Komen Foundation, Dana Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health to allow him to continue his work.
A new therapeutic approach
Ultimately, his work could lead to the death of cancer cells without side effects. In his research at Phoenix Biomolecular Engineering Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Malecki has done successful in vivo testing on tumors in mice.
Within five years, the research could be at the point for a pharmaceutical company to step in. Malecki has successfully created synthetic antibodies, known as affibodies, to distinguish them from natural antibodies, which attach themselves to receptors on cancer cells. The affibodies glow, which allows researchers to see their work on the tumor.
Potentially limitless applications
He says the affibodies also can serve in early detection of cancer. Molecular imaging can detect the presence of cancer at almost half the level of occurrence as can clinical detection.
While Malecki is seeking funds to continue his research, he is teaching pharmacology and advanced pharmacology. Chandradhar Dwivedi, head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, hired Malecki to introduce cutting-edge pharmaceutical biotechnology to the SDSU program. By fine-tuning the affibodies, there are “potentially limitless applications,” Dwivedi says.
The roadblock: $
More than science, the research is being held back by “time and resources,” Dwivedi says. “Dollars control everything. That’s why we need external sources and appreciate what the Juhnkes have done for us.”
Malecki says his former schools have agreed to allow him to transfer his laboratory equipment to SDSU. He could produce milligrams of antibodies, which he needs to continue his work, so he is in the process of buying freezers where his microscopic cancer-fighting agents will be stored.
“To gear up for production is just a matter of space and time,” Malecki says.
Dwivedi says the space issue is being addressed by the SDSU Physical Plant. Malecki will need about 400 square feet. There currently isn’t available lab space for his work in Shepard Hall. Within three years, a new pharmacy-chemistry building is to be built and Shepard Hall will be remodeled, but the work won’t wait for that, Dwivedi declares. |
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