Connections to Asia are expanding. They encompass a wide range of activities including academic conferences, student exchanges and faculty collaborations. They focus on business, engineering, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, wood science, music and more.

The university’s growing international influence is fueled by student recruitment through INTO OSU as well as by direct enrollment in many of our leading research-based graduate programs, says Provost Sabah Randhawa.

“OSU enjoys a strong reputation in Asia and is cited as one of the top 150 universities in the world in international ranking programs,” Randhawa adds. “Many top universities in the region are eager to partner with us for student and faculty exchange programs and global research initiatives.”

Business
The Global Business Analysis Group is working with Dalian University of Technology and the City University of Hong Kong in China and with Yonsei University in South Korea. Researchers are focusing on supply chains, sustainability, business law and operations management.

Apparel and Aging
With colleagues in China, Taiwan and South Korea, Oregon State researchers are exploring cross-national consumer behavior in the domestic and international textile and apparel industries.

Earthquakes and Tsunamis
In Indonesia, Oregon State researchers are working with scientists on the historical record of earthquakes and tsunamis. The subduction zone just west of Sumatra is similar to the Cascadia subduction zone off the Oregon coast.

Music
For the past 12 years, Oregon State’s Department of Music has conducted an exchange program with the cultural ministry of Henan Province in China.

Pharmaceuticals
Oregon State scientists are participating in the search for new antibiotics with colleagues in China, Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand. In Indonesia, they are identifying novel compounds with antimicrobial benefits.

Environment and Agriculture
Air quality, dam construction and agricultural crops are under study byOregon State and Chinese colleagues. They have documented the impacts of polluted air and dam construction. Agricultural scientists have focused on grass seed, forage crops and livestock.

Wheat near Pendleton, Oregon (Photo: Lynn Ketchum, Oregon State Extension and Experiment Station Communications)

It is arguably the plant that made the West. Pioneers brought wheat in practically every wagon on the Oregon Trail. It fed farm families in the Willamette Valley and miners in the John Day and California gold-rush towns. It was currency and foreign exchange.

As the nation grew, scientists developed dryland and irrigated growing techniques. They learned to control competition from weeds and to manage soils. And they bred new varieties that enabled farmers to keep up with demand. The partnership between scientists and farmers — envisioned by the creators of the land grant university system — has more than doubled yields, held diseases at bay and generated revenue for Northwest economies.

Starting with the Morrill Act of 1862, the impact has been worldwide. Here are some of the milestones for Oregon wheat.

George Harth outfit threshing wheat on Howard Pearcy Place, 1910. Garth-Scott steamer and J. I. Case separator (Ray Pearcy Collection)

1833: First receipt
Robert Ball records the first sale of wheat in the Willamette Valley.

1845: Good as gold
Wheat is used as legal tender to pay off debts in the Oregon Territory. Wheat export begins with shipments from Astoria to the East Coast via Hawaii.

1860s: River of grain
Wheat is a major commodity on Willamette River steamboats.

1861: Disaster
Heavy rains destroy flour mills along the Willamette River. Swelling grains burst warehouses.

Farmers used a team of 14 draft animals to harvest wheat. (Photo courtesy of OSU University Archives)

1862: Peoples’ universities
Abraham Lincoln signs the Morrill Act to establish land grant universities focused on the agricultural, mechanical and military arts.

1867: Best of show
Oregon flour is reported to be the highest-priced and best flour on the New York market.

1883: Connected by rail
The Union Pacific Railroad punches through the Columbia Gorge, reaching Portland and signaling the start of increased wheat production in Eastern Oregon.

1887: A statewide experiment station
Passage of the Hatch Act provides federal funds for ongoing agricultural research. Early efforts focus on a 35-acre farm near Corvallis.

1893: Sowers and reapers
Umatilla County produces 4.5 million bushels of wheat.

1901: Research network
The State Legislature appropriates $10,000 to establish the first agricultural experiment station in northeast Oregon.

1910: Better wheat
Oregon Agricultural College opens the Sherman County Agricultural Experiment Station with a focus on wheat variety selection.

1926: A league of their own
Farmers establish the Eastern Oregon Wheat Growers League in response to low prices and a catastrophic freeze in 1924. The league is the first association of wheat growers in the country.

Wilson Foote

1947: Fees by the bushel
The State Legislature authorizes formation of the Oregon Wheat Commission funded by per-bushel fees assessed to growers.

1948: Breeding champions
Oregon State University begins its wheat-breeding program under the direction of Wilson Foote.

Warren Kronstad

1961: Legendary hire
Wilson Foote moves into administration, and Warren Kronstad, Foote’s former graduate student, directs the wheat-breeding program.

1967: Foreign investment
OSU contracts with the U.S. Agency for International Development to improve wheat production in Turkey. By 1980, increased yields and production efficiencies had generated an estimated $750 million for the Turkish economy.

Wheat research plots (Photo: Lynn Ketchum, Oregon State Extension and Experiment Station Communications)

1975: Global impact
OSU’s Eastern Oregon research in dryland wheat production techniques is key to a USAID training program for agricultural scientists in developing countries. Warren Kronstad maintains relationships with about 200 programs.

1978: Top variety
OSU releases Stephens, a variety that quickly becomes one of the most successful in the Northwest. By 1980, Stephens is planted on more than 80 percent of Oregon’s soft winter wheat acreage and is the dominant variety in Washington and Idaho. It is estimated to have increased wheat revenues about $25 million per year between 1981 and 1984.

1998: Next generation
James Peterson arrives at OSU as the Kronstad Wheat Research Endowed Chair to direct the wheat-breeding program.

Jim Peterson led Oregon State's wheat breeding program for 12 years. (Photo: Bob Henderson)

2001: Bang for the buck
OSU Crop and Soil Science researchers developed a new nitrogen mineralization test to help wheat growers reduce fertilizer applications and save money.

2003: Herbicide resistant
Clearfield wheat, a variety released by OSU in cooperation with the German chemical company BASF, becomes Oregon’s most widely planted variety. It tolerates applications of an herbicide that is effective on downy brome and other persistent weeds.

2010: Revenues for research
Clearfield wheat royalties to Oregon State top $1 million, providing additional support for wheat research.

Wheat elevators at the Port of Portland, the nation's largest wheat export facility. (Photo: Tom Gentle)

2011: New leader
Robert Zemetra arrives at OSU as Kronstad Wheat Research Endowed Chair.

2011: Setting the bar
Farmers produce a record-breaking 80.5 million bushels, earning $521 million in farmgate revenues. Yield per acre (81 bushels) was double that achieved in 1977.

Sources:

Mike Flowers, Dept. of Crop and Soil Science, OSU Extension Service

Department of Crop and Soil Science, Oregon State University, Origin and Evolution 1907-1990, by Arnold P. Appleby

100 Years of Progress: The Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station, Oregon State University, 1888-1988, 1990

_________________________________

Read Kernel Chemistry, a story about wheat research from genetics to baking innovations, published by Oregon’s Agricultural Progress magazine, 2009.

Gary Klinkhammer (Photo: Susan Klinkhammer)

“The Arctic in a lot of ways is more like a big lake than an ocean. It’s more isolated,” says Klinkhammer, a professor in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. “Following carbon in the Arctic turns out to be a very powerful thing,” he adds, because it can reveal details about the chemical and geological processes that drive ocean life.

But Klinkhammer felt hampered by his equipment. His analytical tools could produce a lump-sum measurement of carbon, not a detailed picture of the dissolved and particulate forms that emanate from sources such as forests or farms, peat bogs or cities.

Following his Arctic expedition, he got to work on a better way to analyze water quality. What he learned about tracking carbon and other materials led him to create a Corvallis-based technology company that is advancing water-quality protection in the United States and abroad.

Today, in addition to his role as director of the W. M. Keck Collaboratory for Plasma Spectrometry at OSU, Klinkhammer is founder and chief scientific officer of ZAPS Technologies, which designs and sells an analytical system, LiquID™, based on his research. Through optical analysis of flowing water, the system can rapidly monitor over 100 constituents in water-supply and wastewater systems and the environment.

“If you’re looking at the Santiam River or something like that, you don’t really know where that carbon is coming from,” he says. “Some of it’s coming from groundwater. Some of it’s coming from a reservoir. There are multiple sources that it can come from.”

Illustration by Teresa Hall

Pinpointing the identity and source of organic matter and other constituents is a critical step in protecting public health. For example, storms and floodwaters can pollute drinking-water supplies with sediment and disease-causing microbes. One of the most famous cases occurred in 1993 when the microbe cryptosporidium contaminated the drinking-water supply of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that more than 400,000 people got sick and 69 died.

Klinkhammer’s analytical innovation provides both rapid optical analysis and online display of data. It monitors chlorophyll, algae, E. coli and other materials 24/7 in real-time. It can even track inorganic materials such as nitrate, chlorine and ammonia.

Currently, ZAPS employs more than 20 people and has installed monitoring systems in Corvallis, Albany, Seattle and Lafayette, Indiana. Others are scheduled for San Diego and Australia.

Klinkhammer started working with sensors as a graduate student at the University of Rhode Island. His goal then was to locate hydrothermal vents on the vast mid-Atlantic ridge. In his research, he has used water-quality analysis to locate hydrothermal vents in the Antarctic and to understand chemical processes in the oceans, including the Columbia River plume off the Oregon coast.

To evaluate buildings for seismic risk, Miller led a student team that followed guidelines from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA 154). He worked with Portland State and University of Oregon students and faculty as well. During their field survey, they looked for design features that create “falling hazards” or that predispose a building to major damage.

Funded by the state’s go-to agency for seismic safety, the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI), the study paved the way for additional engineering analysis and the state Legislature’s $30 million investment in renovations to schools, fire stations and hospitals in 2009. At OSU, Miller teaches courses in structural analysis and design.

“Professor Miller was a superstar in his significant contributions to the 2007 DOGAMI report,” says Yumei Wang, geohazards team leader for the agency. Miller received the 2010 Government Engineer of the Year Award from the Oregon section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Vulnerable Design Elements (see corresponding numbers on the illustration):

1. Falling hazards such as parapets, unreinforced masonry chimneys and ornamentation/wall panels that are not adequately anchored to the frame. One telltale sign for unreinforced masonry (URM) walls: repeated brick layers placed with the narrow ends facing the outside of the wall. Spaced vertically every sixth or seventh row, such layers connect interior and exterior bricks that can peel away from the structure onto streets and sidewalks in an earthquake

2. Building designs that do not follow a simple rectangular shape. Such irregularities include L-shaped, T-shaped, and U-shaped variations. In an earthquake, each part of the building can move independently, and areas where sections join tend to concentrate stresses. As a result, they can crack and separate.

3. Vertical irregularities where a building becomes narrower as it rises. Seismic shaking again produces concentrated stresses at the step in elevation.

4. Buildings with large openings such as glass storefronts or garage-door openings for trucks. This very flexible wall can cause the building to twist and threaten the integrity of the entire structure.

5. The full seismic survey report is available online at http://www.oregongeology.org/sub/projects/rvs/default.htm.

Advertisers promote them. The American Heart Association recommends eating foods that contain them. Without antioxidants, you may be more prone to cancer and neurological or cardiovascular problems. While antioxidant science is far from settled, OSU researchers have identified sources and are learning how these micronutrients promote health by curbing “free radicals.”

Berry good sources

In 2002, a highly cited paper by an OSU research team led by Ron Wrolstad and Balz Frei documented antioxidant concentrations in 107 varieties of blackberries, red and black raspberries, blueberries and currants. Top-ranked for antioxidant pigments (anthocyanins): black raspberries (Rubus occidentalis)

First line of defense

In a paper that has become a citation classic, Balz Frei reported that vitamin C acts as a powerful antioxidant in human plasma. He showed that it quickly disarms lipid-damaging “free radicals,” thereby preventing “bad cholesterol” from going rancid and contributing to heart disease.

One-two punch

In a series of papers, Maret Traber and OSU colleagues have shown that in humans, vitamins E and C team up to pack more antioxidant punch than either does alone. They also showed that when taken as a supplement, vitamin E must be accompanied by fats to be absorbed by the body.

Gene regulator

Lipoic acid acts as a powerful antioxidant in laboratory experiments (in vitro), but it plays other roles in the human body. Tory Hagen has reported that it regulates genes that stimulate production of glutathione, one of the body’s own antioxidants, and the transport of antioxidants into cells. It thus provides a long-term means of staving off oxidative and toxic stresses.

Heavy metal

Zinc is the most abundant intracellular trace element in the body, contributing to immune function, reproduction and oxidative stress response. In 2009, a team led by Emily Ho reported that a lack of zinc induces single-strand DNA breaks and leads to oxidative stress in otherwise healthy men. The findings confirm that zinc plays a crucial role in the body’s own antioxidant defenses

For more information

See the Micronutrient Information Centerat OSU’s Linus Paul Institute. LPI, one of the nation’s first two NIH Centers of Excellence for Research on Complementary and Alternative Medicine, specializes in the study of micronutrients. Researchers above are affiliated with LPI and the colleges of Science, Agricultural Sciences and Health and Human Sciences.

Funding support

National Institutes of Health (National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Office of Dietary Supplements, National Institute on Aging)

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Collaborators’ home institutions, including OSU

For more information, see these OSU news releases:

Study Citing Antioxidant Vitamin Risks Based on Flawed Methodology, February 27, 2007

Studies Force New View on Biology, Nutritional Action of Flavonoids, March 5, 2007

To support the Linus Pauling Institute and antioxidant research at OSU, contact theOregon State University Foundation.

Strands

Personal recommendation software

Product Lines (Source: Office of Technology Transfer; Illustration: Gavin Potenza)

Corvallis, Oregon

Fizzy Fruit

Carbonated strawberries and grapes
Portland, Oregon

Clear Shape Technologies

Design-for-manufacture technologies
Santa Clara, California

Smart Desktop

Desktop usability recognition
Seattle, Washington

Redrover Software

Spreadsheet quality control
Corvallis, Oregon

Columbia Power Technologies

Ocean wave energy
Corvallis, Oregon

NuScale Power

Nuclear energy
Corvallis, Oregon

Inpria

Printed electronics
Corvallis, Oregon

Life Microsystems

Chlorophyll and bio-compounds
Corvallis, Oregon

Azuray Technologies

Semiconductors for solar energy
Tualatin, Oregon

Accessible Information Management

Services for persons with disabilities
Corvallis, Oregon

Precision Plant Systems

Optimized agricultural production
Corvallis, Oregon

Some of the other technology companies working with OSU

Apex Drive Laboratories,

Electric motor technologies, Portland, Oregon

CSD Nano

Thin-film technologies, Corvallis, Oregon

Home Dialysis Plus

Kidney dialysis, Corvallis and Portland, Oregon

Mtek Energy Solutions

Micro-channel reactors for biodiesel, Corvallis, Oregon

Nanobits

Nanotechnologies, Corvallis, Oregon

NWUAV Propulsion Systems

Engines for unmanned vehicles, McMinnville, Oregon

Peregrin Power

Electronics for extreme environments, Wilsonville, Oregon

Ruminant Solutions

Microbial products, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Transdigita

Internet connectivity services, Corvallis, Oregon

Trillium Fiberfuels

Wheat or grass straw for ethanol, Corvallis, Oregon

Xtreme Energetics

Solar energy, Livermore, California

1909
Seed lab starts up on campus for research and testing.

1920
Grass seed introduced to the Willamette Valley and, by 1924, is a $1 million industry.

1929
Fluorescence test introduced to distinguish perennial from annual ryegrass species.

1937
Oregon State Agricultural College’s seed certification service begins inspection for germination rates and purity requirements.

1950
Grass seed is a $30 million industry in Oregon.

1970s
Research conducted on alternatives to open-field burning, used since the 1940s to control diseases. Studies of air movement helped farmers control smoke. Mechanical residue treatments incorporated into cropping systems.

1992-1997
Research on non-burning alternatives, crop systems and straw uses help farmers respond to a law reducing open-field burning.

1998
OSU testing of toxic compounds in straw-borne endophytes (fungi living inside plants) saves Oregon’s annual straw export market of about 300,000 tons, mostly to Japan.

2000-2005
Global grass-seed demand pushes rapid harvesting, cleaning, labeling and shipping. Redesigned seed inspection stations in the Seed Lab cut certification turnaround from 20 days to seven.

2008
725 million pounds of forage and turf-grass seed produced in Oregon, and 800,000 tons of grass straw exported off-shore for livestock feed.

For more on OSU’s grass seed research:

Scientists See Potential Problems With Using Grass Seed Straw As Livestock Feed, 11-2-07

OSU Seed Lab Busy as Oregon Farmers Harvest 2007 Grass Seed Crop, 8-24-07

Vole Population Explosion Concerns Grass Seed Growers, 6-28-05

To support OSU’s grass seed research, contact the OSU Foundation