Inside this Issue

Research Briefs
Heart Muscle

Titin the Titan

For more than 100 years, a basic physiological tenet has ruled cardiac function: A healthy beating heart will pump out the same amount of blood that it receives. Known as the Frank-Starling Law of the Heart, it is as accepted as gravity and, like gravity, is still not fully understood. Using X-ray diffraction techniques, Thomas Irving from Illinois Tech’s College of Science and Pieter de Tombe from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine discovered that the protein titin may play a critical role in the nano-science behind Frank-Starling. Blood enters the heart during its diastolic phase, when cardiac muscle is relaxed and lengthened. As the heart pumps and enters into its systolic phase, the muscle forcefully contracts through the interaction of myosin and actin protein filaments. Titin serves as a kind of elastic band that stores energy when cardiac muscle is stretched and releases energy when the muscle contracts and shortens. Irving and de Tombe learned that the action of titin pulling on the myosin filaments causes changes that ultimately result in increased strength of muscle contraction when muscle is stretched when the heart fills in the diastolic phase.
News Briefs
Class of 2016

Class of 2016

Cleversafe founder and Illinois Institute of Technology Trustee Chris Gladwin delivered the 2016 Commencement keynote address, during which he asked the Class of 2016 to pose for a photo [above]. Held on May 14 from Illinois Tech’s Ed Glancy Field, the ceremony was viewed via live stream in 61 countries. Gladwin, who recently gave $7.6 million to Illinois Tech to strengthen its computer science program, told the graduates that the photo has a deeper significance than simply being a cool crowd shot.
Features
Kevin Meade

It Takes an IPRO

It is one of the ironies of life that Meade, who is also a clinical orthotist, now benefits from biomechanical devices much like the individuals he has supported throughout more than a decade in clinical practice. At Illinois Tech, Meade may be best known for having led teams of students to Latin America, where they provided orthotic treatment to youngsters with scoliosis, or lateral curvature of the spine, through the university’s Interprofessional Projects (IPRO) Program. Since his stroke, some of Meade’s former students have designed an IPRO course—and an assistive therapeutic device—to benefit their teacher whose life changed in the proverbial instant. “I kind of joke about this whole situation,” Meade continues in characteristic good spirits, seated in his wheelchair in his office in the John T. Rettaliata Engineering Center. “Now I’m serving in the role of a patient—so I’ve got it all covered.”
Features
Joseph Wright

Juris Cannabis

In his three-piece suit, Joseph Wright (LAW ’13) resembles a young James Bond, a man of international daring and intrigue. Yet when he mentions his work with Cannabis , the mystique fades and he’s often hit with a barrage of jokes befitting a Cheech & Chong flick. “ Cannabis has a long history connected with amusing things, so you have to have a sense of humor to do this job,” says Wright, 31, who was appointed last June to serve as director of the State of Illinois Medical Cannabis Pilot Program. “But it’s also a serious medical program.”
Features
Old enemy, New Threat

Old enemy, New Threat

Decades later and half a world away, the Zika virus has graduated from benign to deadly. IITRI scientists—the first to model today’s new strain—are now testing viable treatments and vaccines. In 1947 defibrillation was first performed on a human, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to scientists who discovered how glycogen breaks down in the human body, and the United States Army successfully launched and returned the first living animal—fruit flies—to and from outer space. A lot has changed since then—including the Zika virus.
Features
Wi-Tronix

On the High-Tech Fast TraX

Larry Jordan (EE ’89), president of the remote monitoring technology company Wi-Tronix®, says that although he had led the Electro-Motive Diesel team that created the company’s signature IntelliTrain remote monitoring system, he just couldn’t shake the feeling that an even better system was just down the tracks. “I can’t just have an idea—I have to make it a reality,” says Jordan, noting that when he had the chance to collaborate on a project with Electro-Motive colleague Mike Heilmann (M.B.A. ’04), he knew that together, they could make it happen.
Alumni News
Rocco LEGO

Block Star

For generations of people, LEGO ® (formed from the Danish words for “play well”) bricks serve as the memorable building blocks of their youth. Established in 1932 by master carpenter and joiner Ole Kirk Christiansen in Billund, Denmark, the company first produced wooden toys and household items before expanding into molded plastic in the late 1940s. Today the brand has a portfolio of some 650 products and was the subject of an animated film— The LEGO Movie —with a sequel in the works. The company launched a Sustainable Materials Centre last year as part of its goal to use sustainable materials in all core LEGO products by 2030.
IIT Magazine Summer 2016
Vice President for External Affairs

David Baker

Managing Editor

Marcia Faye

Associate Editor

Chelsea Kalberloh Jackson

Contributors

Amanda Cleary Eastep
Emma Macmillan
Koren Wetmore

Art Director/Design

Scott Benbrook

Illinois Tech Magazine is published two times a year by the Office of Marketing and Communications
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