spoke at the event, shared an
anecdote about how he won the
election primaries for commis-
sioner in 2010 by only one vote.
Rabhi is currently a candidate for
state representative.
Councilmember Sabra Briere
(D–Ward 1), who has served on
the council for five terms and is
running uncontested to retain her
seat, stressed that in addition to
voting, it’s also important for stu-
dents to contact elected represen-
tatives to voice their concerns.
“Your voice is really impor-
tant,” she said. “If you don’t vote,
the decisions that people make on
your behalf may not be the deci-
sions they want you to make. Your
tasks as voters and as activists in
the Democratic party is to make
sure they hear from you.”
Ann Arbor resident Chip Smith,
who is running uncontested for
City Council in the 5th Ward but
faces opposition from a write-in
campaign from Kevin Leeser, a
nurse at the University of Michi-
gan Health System, cited housing
affordability as a top issue in his
campaign that was relevant to
students.
Smith suggested housing costs
led to many University students
leaving Michigan after graduat-
ing.
“We are tired of seeing the best
and brightest leaving the state,”
he said. “I think it’s very impor-
tant to figure out how to create an
environment that invites you to
participate, help shape the com-
munity you live in and gives you
the option to stay.”
In an interview, College Demo-
crats Chair Max Lerner, a Public
Policy senior, said holding events
like Thursday’s meeting is impor-
tant in bridging the gap between
students and politicians.
“Any time we can connect
local leaders with students, we’re
reducing that gap and creating an
environment for more effective
politics and more effective gover-
nance,” Lerner said.
In an interview with The
Michigan Daily, Briere said she
hopes students who attended the
meeting left feeling more confi-
dent in themselves as voters.
“I hope they leave with a more
positive sense of how important
their involvement in local poli-
tics is, because the sexy stuff is
all national politics, we know
that,” she said. “Yet we don’t see
how much difference one vote can
make in national politics but we
can really see it in local politics.”
up into a University-wide stra-
tegic plan,” Martin said. “In
LSA, there are a handful of dif-
ferent discrete activities that
we are doing that are all work-
ing together.”
Martin also touched on how
diversity could be increased in
nonacademic areas.
He said the University’s
Office for Student Life is cur-
rently engaging in a strategic
planning process as well.
“We know that on campus
at various times and in various
places that we do not have a
climate that fully embraces the
diversity of our student popu-
lation,” he said. “A lot of what
happens here that is social,
cultural and academic happens
out in the residence halls in our
community and it’s important
that we try to have the best cli-
mate we possibly can.”
LSA
sophomore
Patrick
Mullan-Koufopoulos said he
thought the new diversity plan
was important moving forward
for the University.
“I think that it’s a really
interesting plan and I support
it wholeheartedly,” he said. “I
think that as a campus we need
more diversity and I think that
we are moving in the right
direction.”
Martin also discussed the
recent faculty senate vote to
support the delay of releasing
course evaluations. Many fac-
ulty members have addressed
concerns with the Universi-
ty’s current course evaluation
mechanisms and have advocat-
ed for revisions before the data
is released.
Martin said this information
should be available to students.
“This is something that my
leadership team and I have dis-
cussed over the past few weeks
and although this is not a unan-
imous view, it is the view of the
college that students should
have access to course evalua-
tions,” he said.
He said the administration
has reached a standstill on the
issue, but he believes students
have the power to get the infor-
mation.
“We are sort of at an
impasse,” Martin said. “As you
all know, you as students have
agency here. You can obtain
the data, but it may be costly.
You’ve got resources through
Central Student Government
or LSA Student Government
that could go ahead and get the
data and publish it in some way.
In my judgment it would be the
right thing for these data to be
available.”
In addition to discussing
the University’s diversity plan
and course evaluations, Martin
fielded questions on a recent
CSG proposal to list mental
health resources in course syl-
labi, the University’s race and
ethnicity
requirement
and
dual-degree programs.
One student asked about
why some schools, like the
Ford School of Public Policy,
do not allow students to com-
plete majors in two different
schools.
“This is a decision that the
Ford School has made,” he said.
“We would be happy to have
dual-degree students with the
other schools and colleges. It
doesn’t make any sense to tell
a student who’s going to com-
plete the requirement for a
major that they cannot get the
real major on their transcript.”
3-News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Friday, October 30, 2015 — 3
ELECTION
From Page 1
DEAN
From Page 1
viduals being “OK” with the
scenario, the yellow piece with
them being unsure or slightly
uncomfortable and the red
piece with them feeling firmly
that the situation was unac-
ceptable.
Scenarios presented a vari-
ety of potentially offensive
costume
possibilities,
from
someone of native ancestry
wearing a “sexy native prin-
cess” costume, to someone
wearing a “white trash” cos-
tume by taping pieces of crum-
pled paper to themselves, to a
Black person dressing as Jus-
tin Bieber.
Other scenarios intention-
ally did not reveal the identi-
ties of the costume wearer.
For instance, one situation
addressed
someone
wear-
ing a Caitlyn Jenner costume;
another addressed someone
dressing as President Barack
Obama.
After completing the exer-
cise,
participants
split
off
into small groups to discuss
their spectrum of views. Most
agreed that the intent of the
wearer was important, but that
wearing a person or identity
as a costume carries weight
regardless.
Rackham
student
Mike
Varano
acknowledged
the
range of intent in cultural
appropriation,
from
some
making uninformed decisions
and others perpetuating ste-
reotypes intentionally.
“I think that’s a huge prob-
lem,” he said in an interview
before the event began. “I
would lean towards the direc-
tion of … people not having
enough sensitivity or maybe
questioning
the
decisions
they’re making around these
things. And I think that we
could do to have more aware-
ness and reflection about even
costumes that are meant to be
jokes especially.”
During one exercise, the
participants got back together
in a circle to discuss their con-
versations.
Many
scenarios
revealed a variety of perspec-
tives.
For example, the group was
split with regard to the “white
trash” costume. Some felt that
the
particular
scenario
of
wearers taping crumpled paper
to themselves was acceptable,
as it was a clever play on words
and not a direct attempt at
stereotyping. Others believed
that any stereotyped attempt
to wear a marginalized group,
such as white people of low
socioeconomic standing, was
dangerous.
The “sexy native princess”
scenario was highlighted for
being both appropriative and
sexist.
LSA
senior
Corine
Rosenberg pointed out the
“exotic erotic” phenomenon —
that people who are deemed
“exotic” for arbitrary reasons
can be harmfully sexualized
and dehumanized.
The dialogue then turned
to acting out skits to promote
bystander intervention, allow-
ing participants to tag each
other in to intervene while
another participant pretended
to wear an appropriative cos-
tume.
Being able to educate the
appropriative wearer became
complicated, as scenarios in
which these costumes were
worn at parties made it more
difficult
for
bystanders
to
effectively inform the wearer.
Potential issues in the “party”
situation included the wearer
being drunk or the environ-
ment being too casual to inter-
vene.
During group discussion,
LSA junior Adedolapo Adeniji
was interested in pointing
out why costumes of particu-
lar people — such as Caitlyn
Jenner, Nicki Minaj, Barack
Obama and Trayvon Martin —
become popular.
“Dress up as a celebrity,
but why are you costuming
(them)?” she asked.
Particular
attention
was
given to the Caitlyn Jenner cos-
tume, which is expected to be
a top-selling choice this year.
Many felt that any attempt to
appropriate an identity, such
as transgender, Black, Native
American or Mexican, in par-
ticular, is harmful.
The general consensus was
that there is a clear issue with
being able to wear these identi-
ties as a costume for the night,
as opposed to being someone
who actively lives with these
identities and the stereotypes
that come with them.
“You don’t want to give peo-
ple the idea that you can wear
this identity and then throw it
away,” said LSA senior Ivory
Bradley during group discus-
sion.
COSTUMES
From Page 1
ing) all depends on which party is
in power … and how these lines are
drawn impacts policy issues.”
Among attendees at the forum,
several concerns were raised,
namely how Michigan compares
to redistricting practices in other
states.
Seven states, including Cali-
fornia and Arizona, currently
use independent commissions to
redistrict the state, which Smith
said mitigated the consequences
of gerrymandering.
Bob King, a former president
of the United Auto Workers
who attended the event, said he
thought independent commis-
sions would be beneficial for the
state.
“I think if there were a better
way to set districts with an inde-
pendent commission it would
make our government a lot more
responsive and a lot more demo-
cratic,” King said. “I’m tired of
gridlock in the government. I’m
tired of polarization. I’m tired
of people who don’t really care
what the citizens think.”
However, Smith and Schewe
noted that changing the way
Michigan is redistricted is a long
process,
requiring
long-term
commitment. Changing redis-
tricting methods would require
an amendment to the Michigan
constitution. This can happen by
either the introduction of a pro-
posed amendment by a legisla-
tor, which, in turn, will be voted
on by the legislature or a citizen
petition for a statewide ballot
question on the issue.
After the event, Ann Arbor
resident Vince Caruso said he
thought the Ann Arbor area in
particular was suffering from
the effects of partisan redistrict-
ing.
“I think we are a laughing-
stock in some ways with our
district in particular being so
gerrymandered,” Caruso said.
“Several sources I’ve checked
have labeled our district one of
the worst in the country. It’s not
a good representation, I think we
are better than that.”
REDISTRICTING
From Page 2
FOLLOW US
@MICHIGANDAILY
Scientists ‘go bananas’ for new application of
fruit protein as method for treating viruses
‘U’ prof. leads
research to
mitigate side
effects of BanLec
BY TOM MCBRIEN
Daily Staff Reporter
The banana: a favorite fruit,
a preferred source of potas-
sium and the source of a mol-
ecule that could fight some of
the world’s deadliest viruses.
Scientists have known for
years that a protein inside
bananas called banana lec-
tin, or BanLec, has powerful
antiviral properties. The only
problem: BanLec also over-
stimulates the immune sys-
tem, resulting in harmful side
effects that make it useless as
a medicine.
However, an internation-
al team of researchers, led
by Internal Medicine Prof.
David
Markovitz,
recently
announced that it was able to
engineer a special version of
BanLec called H84T that has
the virus-fighting abilities of
normal BanLec without the
harmful side effects.
Though Markovitz’s team
is focusing on the anti-influ-
enza properties of the modi-
fied BanLec protein, they also
found
preliminary
results
suggesting it could be used to
treat HIV, hepatitis C, Ebola
and other viruses.
“One scenario we’d love
to see but are — again — far
from, is that it works against
other important respiratory
viruses like MERS and SARS,”
Markovitz said. “So one could
imagine someone ill with a
viral pneumonia coming in
and you don’t know what’s
causing it, but you could treat
them with the modified Ban-
Lec before you know what the
diagnosis is.”
BanLec, like all of the lec-
tin class of proteins, is a spe-
cial molecule that binds to
sugars on the surface of cells.
Because sugars are a very
diverse class of molecules,
cells cover themselves in dif-
ferent sugars to send various
messages to other cells. When
proteins like BanLec bind to
those sugars, they are able to
alter which messages get sent
and received.
“Sugars offer a very sophiti-
cated way to regulate biology
because they’re so complicat-
ed and they can be put togeth-
er in many different forms,”
Markovitz said. “For example,
you can have multiple man-
noses interacting with other
sugars. They can be on cer-
tain proteins covering certain
structures of the protein and
not other structures.”
In BanLec’s case, binding to
mannoses — sugar molecules
that bind to other molecules
— on the outside of viruses
blocks those viruses from
binding to human cells. As a
result, they lose the ability to
invade human cells and will
die out instead of establishing
an infection.
Unfortunately,
BanLec
can also bind to multiple
mannose-containing
struc-
tures on the outside of special
immune cells called T-cells.
When a T-cell binds to some-
thing in multiple places, it
causes inflammation, leading
to swelling and pain. Usually,
this reaction is a healthy part
of the immune system. But
when it results from BanLec’s
attachment to the mannose
structures on T-cells, it can
cause a dangerous reaction
akin to a system-wide allergic
response.
The research team study-
ing BanLec, which included
26 scientists from around the
world, used a host of tech-
niques to discover whether or
not they could tweak BanLec
to remove these side effects.
“We like to approach these
questions by taking advantage
of a wide range of expertise,”
Markovitz said. “One of the
nice things about this work is
that it employed many differ-
ent modalities. We had virol-
ogy, glycobiology, molecular
biology, immunology, animal
models, dynamic modeling,
NMR and crystallography. A
lot of these are very specific
techniques, so no one would
know how to do all of these on
their own.”
Using these techniques, the
researchers discovered that
a single structural change in
BanLec removed the danger-
ous side effects. They shifted
a structure that had previous-
ly shared a special chemical
bond with another structure.
This
bond
separated
two
sugar-binding sites, meaning
they could both attach to a
T-cell separately, stimulating
inflammation. By moving one
of these structures, the bond
disappears and the two bind-
ing sites act more like one.
The structures then lose the
ability to activate T-cells.
Markovitz said there’s a
long way to go before H84T
will be available as a drug.
The team still has to figure
out how to make H84T in
large, chemically pure quan-
tities, hire private companies
to perform full toxicology
reports and see if the protein
is as powerful if given 24, 48
or 72 hours after infection
instead of the four hours used
for the first study. After that,
clinical trials on humans can
begin.
As the researchers contin-
ue to study and refine H84T,
they are also focusing on how
best to bring it to market.
“This is part of why aca-
demia
is
fun,”
Markovitz
said. “You get to do all sorts
of different things, and one
of them can be trying to make
something
come
to
mar-
ket. So that’s what we hope.
But we’ve got a long way to
go before getting to human
treatment.”
As part of this commer-
cialization
effort,
Markov-
itz’s team is working with the
University’s Office of Tech
Transfer to brainstorm how
best to bring H84T to market,
assuming it continues to show
promise.
Markovitz said he hopes
this research inspires more
scientists to research other
modified sugar-binding pro-
teins.
“What we hope is that this
will embolden other groups
who are totally unrelated to
us to take a look at lectins and
see whether they could modi-
fy them in a targeted manner
to treat other diseases that we
wouldn’t do because there are
only so many hours in a day,”
Markovitz
said.
“Another
thing is that it opens up the
whole idea — and I don’t want
to overstate our contribution
because people had thought
about using lectins as anti-
virals long before we got in
the field — but I think this is
another indication that more
specific therapy against the
sugars on viruses might be
effective.”
the michigan daily wishes you a happy and safe halloween