NewsNight Minnesota; 5075; NewsNight Minnesota Episode from 01/07/1998; SD-Base

Minnesota is a production of for the stations of Minnesota Public Television. Too little too late. The Citizens League takes on the plans for change at the U of M and President Mark Yudof studio. Then. This. The plans to clone humans sooner than you think. A literary collection that will surprise you. It's NEWSNIGHT for Wednesday January 7. Tonight's broadcast of NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is presented in part by Norwest banks contributing to the growth of the Twin Cities through support and community service and by General Mills a manufacturer of health foods and snacks. Good evening and welcome to NEWSNIGHT. I'm Kathy wars are going to leave our usual headline summary for a little bit later on. We begin instead tonight with a debate on where the University of Minnesota is headed and whether it's getting there fast enough. Well sixty six thousand students enroll at one of the U.S four campuses every year. The school provides

jobs for more than 30000 Minnesotans last year and attracted almost 350 million dollars in grants and contracts. Want some more numbers. Its budget this year is almost 1.5 billion dollars more than 500 million of that will come from state taxpayers. In short the U of M is a vast importance to this state and the state is not getting enough bang for its buck. At least that's the conclusion in layman's terms from this report the citizens released today. Lau Ray is executive director of the league and Mark Yudof is president of the University of Minnesota. Gentlemen welcome to NEWSNIGHT. Well Ray I got to ask you what's broken here at the you in a nutshell. Well actually I'm not in a debating mood because I think the report basically said a lot of things are going right and that what needed to get done was an emphasis more on the direction of the president office recently said and that is focusing on the future economy in Minnesota and how we position ourselves. And I think we have a lot of common agreement on how that needs to get done but we're

impatient about moving quickly. You know I was interested to see that part of the recommendations include eliminating low quality low priority programs but isn't low quality low priority and I the bill holder and if I have a if I'm going for a degree in the classics I don't think that that's low priority. Right. As I'm sure President off will say the universities have many many different priorities and we're suggesting that when you look at the four or five major things for the new economy the digital based information biotechnology economy that need to get done right we make need to make absolute sure sure that those things get done very very well. And then I think a process of looking at things that are lower priority or lower quality. The question is how do you free up resources from those to feed the higher priority areas and how that gets done I think is a matter of some concern. Well Mark Yudof How do you do some of these things. I mean you have obviously as you know I delicate balancing act here when you have a liberal arts yet you have as well right is talking about a whole new technology a whole new frontier out there. Well I think there are number of things. I thought the report had many good

points in it and I wish I'd had it perhaps a year ago before I came on the scene it would have given me a blueprint I think for many of the things I discovered the hard way. The blueprint that I see is that the report says we need to have priorities and they actually endorse the priorities the draftsman terms of molecular science and these leukemia discoveries we've read all about digital science. New media everything from how you maintain a home page to doing graphic design in magazines agriculture and so forth. So I really feel we're headed in the direction that the league would have us go in other areas like human resources I think they're right historically have not put enough money into developing those human resources training. But we've elevated the position to a vice presidency and we have as the sort of commission to carry out the terms of something called the Denny report Chuck Danni's committee that said these are the things you need to do and that's the first priority. And I think we do need to do a much better job of transferring technology I think the league is absolutely right. We have a new vice president for research and what does that mean we say

transfer technology. You have a series of processes you start with that scientist in the laboratory. You then move on to the question of what sort of marketable value in the discovery there and sometimes the scientist is not the right person to know that. Then you have the question of determining whether there is a market. You have the question of protecting the intellectual property and most importantly getting it out hopefully to a Minnesota company that says Now here is the new pacemaker for for heart disease war. This is the way that we can develop wild rice in a way that we could not 10 years ago were here's a new Kamya therapy and getting it into the hands of a company that will actually market this and get it out to people. Great jobs and so forth. And this isn't Lee says and Lee is talking about a university state's industry business partnership to support research and I think it's very much complimentary what President Yudof has just said. He talks about transferring knowledge once we have it. The North Star research coalition we recommend as a partnership is focused a bit more on the front end of making sure in the four priority

areas that we can recruit and get the best talent in the market equip them with laboratory equipment and get some research done. So there's very much a complementary perspective here that we need to get in the knowledge economy we need to have new knowledge being developed that then gets transferred and enrich as the economy. That's expensive and we need to do. We think we need to accelerate that process. I'm wondering though President Yudof What's the danger of business and industry driving research. At the expense of academic freedom in the laboratory you raise a good point. I happen to be fake in favor of tremendous cooperation with the with business I think the first thing you start with is you know we don't sit in my office and say we need more laser research or something. What happens is that every one of these projects has a funding agency behind it usually the federal government or a business partner 3m or Cargill or whoever it happens to be. So it's really driven in large part by the priorities as they're Adana fired by the federal government the state government and by that by industry. So in that

sense I think our professors have learned that that's legitimate. That is perfectly legitimate to do that and that is not a threat to academic freedom. Now there are problems we have to make sure the results are publishable and that it's all done above board and open to public scrutiny. And that if you want to do research in English department of Chaucer we do that even though the Pentagon doesn't want to sponsor part of a search. But by and large I think we can make this work that the big thing the report says and I agree and sort of general terms the details would have to work out is we need a new vehicle to do some of this type of thing because the types of people who do the technology transfer are not the same types of people that administer grants day in and day out of university. You need people with more business savvy who've developed a network and so forth. What do you have to convince. I mean you know I have talked a lot about citizens of the reports in the past when you read through this report when you have to convince a board to make some of this happen is it just mainly university people like Mark Yudof. Is it the legislature. Who is your audience with this right.

Well of course university is a constitutional entity so it's got a tremendous amount of autonomy but in practical terms I think we're talking about the governor and legislative leadership as well as university. And I think we're getting a fairly positive reception in the general concept. The details are always where the devils are worked out. And we have a lot of work to do in that area but we think that the idea of putting more of the front end recruitment of talent and equipping people to help generate new knowledge that then gets transferred is important and we think a few other things are important in terms of measuring and publishing quality results. Recruiting and providing more resources for getting the best graduate students we can it's a very competitive marketplace in terms of levels of fellowships and how long they're for things of this sort we think a number of things need to get done but we think we're generally on the right track. Kathy if I could chime in if you're quickly going oh I was going to say you know being president is sometimes like owning a cemetery you know there are a lot of people are doing it but nobody's listening. And but I think people are listening if you look at that supplemental budget that the governor has recommended it includes equipment and new hires. And you have to pass a legislature so has to pass and we've got to keep that pressure on.

We'll see what happens Gentlemen thank you so much. Thank you again. We're going to be ready now for the day's news summary I hear. Thanks Kathy. A scary situation in Mendota Heights this morning as several manhole covers started blowing off in the street. Urgency crews to be on the safe side evacuated a 15 block area. Officials used special detectors to try to trace the origin of a suspected gas leak. Students from Somerset elementary school were removed from classes and sent to nearby Sibley high school. No one no one was injured when the manhole covers blew off but the incident remain under investigation and everyone has been allowed back into their homes. Well it's called methamphetamine meth crystal crank State Attorney General Skip Humphrey says it's as addictive and harmful as heroin or crack cocaine Humphrey says he wants the legislature to increase penalties for possessing making and selling meth unfed I mean up to a million dollar fine and 30 years in prison for possessing small amounts just like heroin and cocaine. That is this amount right here. But if you

want to have the possession if you want to get any kind of conviction on the possession of meth you've got to have this much. You know something's wrong with this picture because this is at least as dangerous as these and the Partnership for a Drug-Free Minnesota has produced these ads warning of the dangers of meth. What made you over a convenience store would make you so paranoid you never left your room along with the addictive nature of the drug. Officials say that people who make it use hazardous chemicals that easily explode and cause fires. The legislature is likely to go along with Humphrey's call for stronger penalties at that same press conference a conference today also refused to confirm or deny that his office is investigating whether the proposed sale of the Minnesota Twins could violate antitrust laws. The twins owner Carl Pohlad an acting baseball commissioner Bud Selig say they've received questionnaires from Humphries office Humphrey who is also a DFL candidate for governor says he can only talk about his own personal feelings on the issue.

Personally I want the twins. I'm a fan of the twins I've been a fan of the twins before they were the twins sell. Personally I want to see that happen. But as attorney general there are responsibilities to see that the laws are complied with and that the marketplace is free and competitive. And that's exactly what the anti-trust laws are there for. And we're going to take up our responsibilities in those regards but I as I said I do not want to confirm or deny any matters related to this in terms of investigation. The twins official says Humphries office is on a fishing expedition. In other political news Governor Carlson has appointed a new judge to the second judicial district trial court. Teresa R. Warner will take up the gavel taking the place of the Honorable Gordon Schumacher who got kicked upstairs to the state court of appeals and Warner has been an assistant county attorney in Washington County since 1980. She's a native of St. Paul. It's not going to have a year for about 300 and 70 employees of the IBP beef processing plant in Laverne IBP president Richard Bond says that the company

plant is going to be closed because there is not enough beef produced in the area to support the local operation. While employees have been offered jobs at two other IBP plants ones in Iowa the other is in Nebraska. There is one silver lining to all this. Bond says that the company will still buy cattle from southern Minnesota farmers for processing at its other factories And finally tonight some election news to report though it's long past November Saunder Erickson a Princeton area DFL or has been given the nod by voters in House District 17 a special election was held yesterday in the Malacca County area to fill the seat vacated by Leroy Compean Dreier who took an appointment to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission and district 51 B which includes parts of Washington and another counties for people have filed to run in a special election there. That seat opened up last month when Doug Swensen took a judgeship in Pine County. The primary scheduled for January 13th. Well that's the day's news summary. Up next the little

cloning around. This is assume she wants cloning human be. Now if you're able to do that who would you clone. Combine it tonight. Because everyone seems to enjoy his athletic abilities. First off I wouldn't call anybody but I guess let's say it was a requirement clone somebody that I guess does good for the city in the state and I guess you know for mankind is all. I shouldn't say this but I don't think I want to call my mother. I only knew one of her if I could clone anybody she knew fine I don't know it's probably somebody really intelligent you know solve all the problems of the world would be interesting to clone Einstein or to clone somebody like that to see if it. Is it Is it genetics or not I mean I need to start from from that point of view. It's very interesting but at the same token I don't like the idea.

When the story of Dolly the cloned Scottish sheep hit the papers last spring experts said that human cloning was still a way off. Well they were wrong. Today there's a report by The Washington Post that a certain Doctor of Science G Richard Seed is ready to clone a human right now before Congress has a chance to ban the process. He says he's got a team of doctors ready in Chicago and eight people have volunteered to have themselves cloned subject number one for tonight's bioethics panel. Professor Jeffrey Kahn heads up the University of Minnesota's Center for Bioethics. Dr. Greg versal Lodhi is an associate dean at the U of M Medical Center and professor Carroll tower is at the College of St. Catherine. Well Professor Kohn I remember you sitting in this chair a while back you said you know I'm telling you that I get to humans for a while until I open my paper and there is this guy in Chicago thinking and saying I can do this. Is it really going to happen to you. Well I think actually it will take quite a while that there's a big gap between cloning a

sheep and cloning a human being. The interesting issue about this I think is that it's a really a research question that can't be researched upon first of all the government will not fund research on human embryos which certainly would be part of what we would have to do to learn about human cloning. And as we've heard many times before the president in Congress has talked about putting a moratorium on such a practice. And so individuals are really putting themselves in the position of being both a client for fertility services and a research subject at the same time and I think it's quite a dangerous thing to even think about. I'm wondering Professor tower you know should Cleaning be done and under what can you see any conditions under which cloning might be acceptable to clone a human. Well I think the answer that would be yes I could possibly see some circumstances but I think that's jumping way ahead of where we are now. We have had one sheet cloned from a cell from an adult sheep one. And they were 277 embryos produced in order to make that one sheep come

to live birth. So I would say that just an enormous amount of animal research that should be done. And some of that is actually being funded by the National Institutes of Health. They are funding some research in the cloning of primates monkeys not because they're so interested in cloning but because they would use these identical genetic monkeys to do research on AIDS and other diseases. Do you think this guy's blowing smoke in Chicago. I think that he probably is going to make some attempts but I doubt that he is going to be successful. I wonder Professor Khan and by the way Doctor first thought if you want to chime right in feel free. I would just wish the Vikings would clone Fran Tarkenton once we have him but we need it bad. But you know that's not going to happen it orginally absurdist tell you that during the news conference that Dr seed had in Chicago he said you know he was doing this in part. To drum up financial support for this venture capital. Do you think this could in due time somewhere along the line turn into a big business.

I don't know about a big business but I think there are certain people who could benefit from this kind of technology people who otherwise are infertile and could not have a genetically related children. What size that populated population is I don't think we really know. And it is to follow what Carol said a moment ago fertility service is one of the few places where we go from animal research directly into human application. We sort of skipped over the human research stage and that's because there's a cloning research ban on human embryos being used in research. And so it's an interesting sort of small part of biomedical research if it's treated that way. Emma switching gears here one thing that really bothers me very particularly about what he's doing is that science is done among a community of scholars. And this person is going off on his own. He is not participating in the community of infertility specialists as he's working sponsible. I want to know when we start talking about research and that sort of thing a really interesting story. President Clinton is is considering a big increase in federal spending for about medical research. And I'm curious Dr. versa Lodhi how big of a change is that when you hear the administration saying

we should put money into bio medical research. This is a huge change in the priorities of this country Kathy for years. We've thought about science and technology. We think about the adventures in space. Think about the about Nassa and think about conquering space. We've had wars on cancer but never have we really seriously had on the top of our R&D agenda the health of the country. Doubling the NIH budget budget at this time is especially opportune. The tools that we have today to understand the genome the technology that's available to cure disease to prevent disease is now available yet. If we are not we do not continue to invest. This will never get translated from the law to humans. That is flies fruit flies to humans to prevent breast cancer to prevent Alzheimer's. Minnesota stands to gain quite a bit from this and as you know the state of Minnesota the Mayo Clinic

dilute the University of Minnesota is enormously well and dolled up with experts in research in biomedical medicine. What I'm very encouraged about is the possibility of the university Minnesota and this state will reap the benefits will be able to translate these basic findings into better health for our society and for Minnesota in economically the spin off of biotech and tech device companies will help the economy. While this sounds great I'm curious about the politics of research especially when you start dealing with with members of Congress. Is there a danger of pitting. Cancer and AIDS against some other smaller disease professor. I do have some concerns about that and people who are researchers may not see that as a problem. But for instance in the article that was the New York Times the other day the whole focus was on cancer was the National Cancer Institute and what they were going to do in cancer research. I think cancer

is a type of disease that people are very interested in having research on. But I do have some concerns that there are lesser known diseases or you might say less popular. That's not quite the right word but we're people aren't quite so interested in them or they might not get their share of the funding. And that's why I was glad to see that Congress is going to work with the National Institutes of Health to decide what they see as priorities and how they think it should be distributed. I think that's right there. There's a limited sized biomedical research and for everything else in this country we have to decide how to divide it up appropriately. I mean one of the interesting things that this is bringing out is how. Biomedical Research is a way for people to get their health care. And Richard Klausner the director of the NCI said we should make it a possibility for every person who wants to be in research to participate. That's a big switch and it's really different than what we say about health care we don't say every person needs health care should have access to it. Should the decisions be left up to Congress when it comes to things like funding. And I think I think the dollar amount and I I would agree that we don't want to have a disease of the month we

don't want to pit breast cancer is a worse disease than AIDS etc.. I think the basic research and the basic fundamentals of how a cell works how cells live and die how organisms live and die will give us insights for all diseases and this is what we've learned from AIDS research. Thank you so much panelists appreciate your time we'll have you back again. Got a reaction to tonight's ethics debate or maybe to the U of M discussion. Well let us know if 6 1 2 2 2 9 14 30 gets you know the viewer comments line. Katie see news a K T C a dot org gets you into our e-mail system. Well next up a preview of a new documentary that's been getting a lot of buzz around town. Archie Givens Sr. was the first black millionaire in Minnesota. There was generosity at the givens collection was created a rich archive of African-American writing in history all located right at the U of M Wilson library in Minneapolis in just a moment we'll talk with Archie Givens Jr. son of the late philanthropist. First a

preview of the documentary. They're little. You know look began to change. Things are changing for Lavinia Chandler but it's not through luck. She's working hard to learn how to read. They would win the war from Job applications to reading to children the ability to read and write is an essential life skill. This mother and grandmother grew up in the Deep South where work and family demands kept her from education. After relocating to Minnesota to give her kids a better life she realized she wanted more as well. I really couldn't reach my barber and it hit me one day. That I wanted to I was something else that I wanted you know. And I always felt that within me there was something that was missing and I knew I needed it.

This is the same feeling experienced by her ancestors African-Americans in slavery. There was power in the written word especially the Bible which inspired a young slave named Frederick over a century and a half ago. The frequent read aloud where the husband was absent. Curiosity in the mystery of the desirable are for slaves. The Bible was forbidden reading and writing was against the Southern Society fought the spread of literacy often with severe punishment. First it was gone. Trying to read or write you a script that go high the next time I have a mind to you. And a bird take the first giant off you know for offering a

car to Givens Jr. is the son of the late Art to Givens Welcome to NEWSNIGHT. This is an amazing collection. How did it end up in Minnesota. It is a very exciting collection and it's some 6000 volumes. It was a result of actually 10 other African-American families who came together and pulled our resources to really bring in about twenty five hundred volumes of this to Minnesota so we acquired it and let it grow in the last few years. How can one use this resource and it's available for scholars for teachers for people who are who are interested in literature quality literature and who want to know more and explore African-American literature and you brought some examples here which you have a book with Frederick Douglass for goodness sakes. One of the one of the first first of three out of biographies of Frederick delegate Douglass and what makes our collection very unique is that most of the books are inscribed. And by the authors and this is published and 1845 and it has a picture of young Frederick Douglass which is sort of unusual.

Situation is usually a much older person so much and that's a very you know this is a book by Conti Cohen who is signed by an iconic Helen but by Paul Robeson who I belong to that's very very special. I'm curious for folks who might not understand the meaning of a collection like this to African-American folks and it's ties us to our history our literary history our personal history as a people and and it's it's very very very important transition for us to understand history for us to read and and gather and it's a sense of pride and and self-confidence that we can gather. What would your dad think of this documentary. Quickly I think it is very proud and very excited. All right you know I wish I had more time to talk thank you so much thank you for having me. Well life in literature the given the collection airs are right here in the Twin Cities not o'clock tonight viewers in greater Minnesota check your local listings. Well he's not the subject of a documentary but he will be the subject of a daylong teach in at Stanford University on

January the 17th. So once again Roy to listen to a little of Duluth born in Hibbing bread Bob Dylan as we close out the show. The weather forecast my friends. Yeah light snow and sleet or freezing rain in the southeast. Just light snow in the northwest. Nice and mild though. 20s to the mid 30s. And that is NEWSNIGHT for tonight. Enjoy the Grammy nominated Bob Dylan music and good night. That's. True. Said. Rob. Yes that was bad for the city. But you. Say. That.

It's. Not that Minnesota is made possible by the contributors to the power to Camping's program from major grants from the bland and foundation and the McKnight foundation. Tonight's broadcast of Lou and I also know that there's anything by Norwest banks contributing to the growth that when City through support and community service. And by General mean to manufacture a healthy food instead.