0 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 5A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 5A
DINING
From Page 1A
meals in the dining halls. This
time was different, Grieb said,
because the resolution included
a budget plan formulated by Uni-
versity Housing administrators.
University Housing spokes-
man Peter Logan said the deci-
sion to revive Saturday night
dining came after months of
budgetary considerations and
discussions with the RHA. The
combination of the Michigan
Student Assembly's campaign
to restore Saturday night dining
and support from the RHA and
the residential student popu-
lation encouraged University
Housing to restore dining to all
seven nights of the week, Logan
said.
The issue of Saturday night
dining became a prominent topic
on campus during the winter
2010 semester, when former
MSA President Chris Armstrong
and other members of the MFor-
ward party advocated for the
return of the Saturday evening
meals.
"A lot of students have been
talking about wanting this kind
of option and having the dining
halls more accessible to them
and (Saturday night dining) will
do just that," Grieb said.
Due to structural constraints,
only two of three dining halls
will provide Saturday eve-
ning dining options - Bursley
Residence Hall, South Quad
Residence Hall and/or the Hill
Dining Center. All other dining
halls will remain closed Satur-
day night.
"Ideally, we would like to offer
meals seven nights a week at
South Quad, Hill Dining Center
and Bursley, but we haven't yet
worked out all of those logistics,"
Logan said, adding that Bursley
is a primary candidate because
of its location on North Campus.
While the exact cost of the
Saturday night dining option
remains unclear, Logan said
cuts and reallocations of funds
in University Housing's budget
would pay for the new option,
rather than increasing room and
board rates.
LSA freshman Omar Hash-
wi, an LSA representative on
MSA and chair of MSA's Cam-
pus Improvement Commission
that has been working to resotre
Saturday night meals in campus
dining halls, said he is extremely
pleased with the RHA resolu-
tion.
"We're just really happy to
make this happen for our con-
stituents," Hashwi said. "They
asked something from us and I
believe we were successful in
taking their concerns and mak-
ing them a reality."
LSA senior Nathan Hamilton,
an LSA representative on MSA
who was also involved in the
assembly's Saturday night dining
campaign, said the Saturday din-
ners will provide students who
can't afford to eat off campus
with more nutritional selections
compared to the food offered
at residence hall cafes like Ciao
Down Pizzeria in South Quad.
"A lot of students have left
over meal credits, and it's very
beneficial to be able to actually
use those on Saturday nights,"
Hamilton said.
PROTEST
From Page 1A
funding cuts. If Snyder's budget
passes, Stocks said he antici-
pates his class sizes will increase
even more, which he says will be
a disadvantage for students.
Stocks added that the down-
sizing of his school's staff size
after to previous budget cuts has
already inhibited students' edu-
cation.
"If this budget passes, we will
lose another 15 percent of our
staff," Stocks said.
Serge Farinas, a representa-
tive for the Graduate Employees'
Organization at the University,
spoke at the rally and questioned
the legitimacy of democracy in
Michigan if Snyder's proposal
passes. He added that he hopes
everyone at the rally will come
together again at the Univer-
sity's Spring Commencement
ceremony on April 30, when Sny-
der will be delivering the Com-
mencement speech.
When the University
announced Snyder would be
the keynote speaker at this
year's Spring Commencement,
many students and members
of the University community
expressed their disapproval over
the governor's planned cuts to
higher education funding. Stu-
dents held a rally on the Diag in
protest last month and voiced
their concern at the University's
Board of Regents meeting in
March, where they presented a
petition with nearly 4,000 sig-
natures from members of the
community who opposed Snyder
speaking at Commencement.
If Snyder's 15-percent
decrease to higher education
funding is approved by the leg-
islature, the University would
receive $47.5 million less than
its current state appropriation
of $316 million. Snyder also
proposed a higher reduction
percentage, 20 percent, to col-
leges and universities that raise
tuition more than 7.1-percent.
However, University officials
have said any tuition increase
for the next academic year will
be under this mark.
Lansing Mayor Virg Ber-
nero, who was also the 2010
Democratic candidate for gov-
ernor, addressed the crowd with
his two daughters at his side,
emphasizing the importance of
the working class.
"It's not the money chang-
ers over on Wall Street, it's not
the big bankers, it's the working
people in this state that make
the country go," he said.
Pat Devlin, secretary-trea-
surer of Michigan Building and
Construction Trades Council,
said members of his union have
had their "sense of economic
security ripped apart," and the
Michigan Legislature has done
little to return the state's eco-
nomic environment to normalcy.
"They've lost cars, they've
lost homes, they've lost the
opportunity to send their kids
to college," Devlin said. "Entire
families have lost any sense of
normal. The new normal is eco-
nomic uncertainty. So you would
think our lawmakers would be
focusing on things that take
away that uncertainty, things
that provide jobs."
Devlin continued by express-
ing his concerns about the
current state of politics in Mich-
igan, adding that the state got
means an exhaustive list."
However, Brawn said because
of the changes to the MCAT, he
thinks some students may take
more time to prepare for their
medical school applications.
"The typical three-year sched-
ule may continue to work for
some students, but it won't work
for all of them, and it does not
have to," Brawn said.
According to Koetje, the
changes aren't intended to make
things more difficult for pre-med
students, but are instead intend-
ed to reflect the science-focused
reality of today's medical field.
"The state of medicine is a far
more sophisticated science now
than it ever has been," Koetje
said. "There's increasing expec-
tations on the part of medical
schools that their students are
going to be able to perform with a
certain level of skill or competen-
cy in these sciences even as they
come into medical school."
Because students who plan
to attend medical school typi-
cally take the exam their junior
year, several students, including
LSA freshman Jiajia Huang and
LSA sophomore Phil Berkaw,
into "this mess" because people
failed to vote in the gubernato-
rial election in November.
"... As the old saying goes,
bad lawmakers get put into the
office by good people who don't
vote," Devlin added. "Too many
of us stayed home from the polls
last November, too many of us
weren't paying attention when
the tea party pushed by some big
money donors, pushed Repub-
licans farther to the right than
they've been in recent memory."
Like Farinas, Bernero said
the Republican's fiscal propos-
als won't fix Michigan's econ-
omy and will only exacerbate
the state's financial issues. The
Michigan government faces an
approximate $1.4 billion deficit
for the upcoming fiscal year.
"(Democrats) have a differ-
ent strategy than trickle down,"
Bernero said. "We believe in the
grass roots ... if you water the
roots ... if you take care of the
people at the lower level, then
good things will grow upward.
I'm tired of being trickled on."
- The Associated Press
contributed to this report.
expressed concerns about being
able to finish pre-med require-
ments on time.
Huang, a pre-med student who
has not yet declared her major,
said she feels the new version of
the MCAT will deter students
from declaring concentrations in
subjects unrelated to the material
on the exam.
"I can understand why they
would do thatbecause you should
know more in-depth topics, but at
the same time it's hard for you to
major in something other than
the sciences," Huang said.
Berkaw said he plans to apply
to medical school and thinks
the additions to the test are
appropriate since the new topics
tend to be neglected in the pre-
medical curriculum. However,
he expressed a similar concern
as Huang about the additional
requirements.
"It doesn't leave any room
for exploration, really," Berkaw
said. "For me, I was thinking
about majoring in anthropology,
and I was able to take anthropol-
ogy classes early on, and I don't
know if you'd be able to fit that in
under the new curriculum."
GENE THERAPY
From Page 1A
that injections of the gene trans-
fer vector - commonly referred
to as NP2 - were agent was
safe and that it improved cur-
rent treatments, proving Fink's
hypothesis correct.
The purpose of using NP2 in
the study was to test whether
the pain experienced upon injec-
tion differed from the pain can-
cer patients felt aftef dosages of
more common treatments, like
morphine, were distributed.
The study's subjects were
given a herpes-based vector, Fink
said. Samples of the herpes virus
were injected into the vector,
which was then administered
the subjects. According to Fink,
the herpes virus was explicitly
chosen for this particular study.
"Cold sores are transmitted
through skin contact," Fink said.
"In the same way, their injection
tested for pain upon skin con-
tact."
The similarities between the
transmission of the herpes virus
and the transmission of the gene
therapy as a mechanism of pain
relief was meant to show the
researchers whether the treat-
ment is effective or not, Fink
explained.
Using gene therapy as a mech-
anism to combat pain is a revolu-
tionary discovery, Fink said.
"Initially, we thought gene
therapy was only a way to cor-
rect abnormal genes," Fink
explained. "But now, therapies
are very useful to express pep-
tides as drugs in very local places
in the central nervous system."
There are three phases a
treatment must go through
before becoming available to
consumers at a pharmacy, Fink
said. In phase one, which was
completed for this study, the
safety of the drug is evaluated by
a group of about 10-20 subjects,
Fink said.
Next, larger studies are con-
ducted to assess the effective-
ness of the drug, pending it is
proven to be acceptably safe in
phase one. Finally, randomized,
controlled, multicenter trials
on large patient groups of up to
3,000 subjects assess how effec-
tive the drug is compared to
current treatments. This phase
determines whether a drug or
therapeutic treatment goes to
market, Fink said.
Susan Urba, a professor of
hematology, oncology and oto-
rhinolaryngology in the Medi-
cal School and one of the study's
researchers, wrote in an e-mail
interview that when cancer
patients first come to the Univer-
sity Hospital, they are primar-
ily seeking treatments for their
disease, while researchers also
work to improve their quality of
life.
"They don't realize that we
can also offer innovative new
treatments for control of their
symptoms, too, which can poten-
tially really benefit their quality
of life," she wrote.
According to Urba, the recent
study has the potential to lead to
future developments in the field.
"About 80 percent of patients
with pain can be fairly easily
treated with pain medications,
although the other 20 percent
are more challenging, and new
approaches are needed ..." Urba
wrote.
She added that the research-
ers' recently completed study
will be used to assess the safety
of further clinical trials.
"This study only looked at
patients with cancer pain," Urba
wrote. "Similar vectors are being
studied in neuropathic pain from
nerve injuries and in pain result-
ing from diabetes."
MCAT
From Page 1A
behavioral and social sciences.
Officials have also eliminated the
current writing sample section
and will add 90 minutes to the
length of time to take the exam,
which is currently 5.5 hours.
The behavioral and social sci-
ence section of the new MCAT
will reflect the material taught
in undergraduate psychology
and sociology courses. Koetje
said the additional high-level
science that will be tested on the
exam reflect material students
will encounter during medical
school.
"They're going to be increas-
ingly focusing on biochemistry,
cellular - and molecular biol-
ogy, as well as statistics because
these are sciences that medical
schools themselves are saying
are increasingly important for
pre-medical students to have
exposure to before they come to
medial school," Koetje said.
However, Steven Gay, assis-
tant dean for admissions at the
Medical School and an assistant
professor of internal medicine,
wrote in an e-mail interview that
the University's curriculum isn't
undergoing substantial changes
because of the proposed MCAT
modifications.
"We believe that the improved
MCAT process should help us
continue to evaluate and admit
the best applicants in the country
to the University of Michigan,"
Gay wrote. "Our curriculum is
always under constant review,
but one preliminary component
of admission should not dramati-
cally affect how we design our
curriculum."
Similarly, David Brawn, a pre-
health adviser at the Newnan
Academic Advising Center, wrote
in an e-mail interview that the
additional advanced science to be
included in the MCAT shouldn't
make a considerable difference
for pre-med undergraduates at
the University.
"It is already commonplace
for students here at U-M to fit in
some upper level science course-
work prior to the MCAT," Brawn
wrote. "Biochemistry, physiol-
ogy and genetics are probably the
most common, but that's by no
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