While students used the summer months to raise spending cash or stock up on class credits, University of Wisconsin researchers and professors earned national attention through their breakthroughs in genetics and engineering.

Psychiatry and psychology professor Dr. Richard Davidson’s research has catapulted him into the media spotlight. His studies involving the relationship between emotions and the brain has landed him a reference in Time magazine’s August cover story on meditation, and he has been featured on major television networks throughout the world.

Davidson is the director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience and the W.M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior. Working in such areas has given him the chance to meet and befriend the Dalai Lama, and he is helping to organize the first public meeting between scientists and the Dalai Lama.

Sean Carroll and Nicolas Gompel of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Wisconsin, hoping to see firsthand morphological diversity and molecular convergence among species, studied wild fruit flies for several months.

By comparing the genetics of several different species of fruit flies, the scientists discovered that a common gene, “Bric-a-brac2,” produced a far-reaching pattern of coloration on the abdomens of the different species.

“It’s kind of surprising that evolution repeats itself,” Gompel said.

Such findings demonstrate how genes are used in differing ways to influence the bodily workings of separate species.

“It shows that pathways in evolution are used more than others and gave us a glimpse under the hood of biological diversity,” Gompel said. He added that many facets of convergence have yet to be studied and understood.

Nonetheless, this study has far-reaching effects, Gompel said, and will play an invaluable role in understanding drug and insecticide resistance. In addition, this research will help to funnel down the complexities of molecular diversity to a relatively simple genetic plan.

UW researchers have made other breakthroughs over the summer in understanding the potato famine. The genetics of late blight, the infamous perpetuator of the Irish potato famine of the late 1800s, is something UW scientists have come to understand.

Professor of plant pathology John Helgeson and professor of horticulture Jiming Jiang have discovered a method of genetic insertion that results in genetic resistance to the disease. In the process, the genes from a plant that co-evolved with a late-blight pathogen are inserted into those of the engineered plants, resulting in disease resistance.

In addition, Helgeson noted that the newly engineered crop could harbor both economical and environmental benefits.

“If deployed, I believe that the gene could greatly reduce fungicide amounts required to produce potatoes. It could also provide a cheaper means of protecting the crop in countries that are very poor,” he said. He added that Wisconsin alone adds 500 tons of fungicide to potato fields in a blight-prone year.

Such findings are among the first to reach such a successful level; no potatoes grown in the United States have yet developed any resistance to the disease. However, due to the fear of using genetically modified crops and the newness of the studies, the technology has yet to be integrated into the agricultural world.

Other UW researchers are working on creating energy from plants. In a high-tech yet simple process, researchers have found a nickel-tin catalyst that can take the place of platinum in a new process for deriving hydrogen fuel from plants.

Such a discovery is a step toward an economical system that relies on substances derived from renewable sources instead of from fossil fuels, which are not only in high demand, but are expensive to work with.

“The conversion of biomass into useful products is an important aspect of managing of our natural resources effectively for sustainable production of needed chemicals and energy,” UW chemical and biological engineering professor James Dumesic said.

The team discovered the platinum substitute after extensive research in search of a nickel-tin-aluminum combination that would react with biomass-derived hydrocarbons. The reaction had to create hydrogen and carbon dioxide without unnecessary methane.

“Our study illustrates how a systematic approach involving fundamental aspects of chemical and biological engineering can lead to new, environmentally sustainable processes for the production of energy,” Dumesic said.