In the shadow of Princeton, Rider shines in research, too

Mercer Business, Feb 1994 by Delany, Don

Universities and colleges have long been among the most important centers of research and development. And all of us have been aware that over the past several decades many of the most significant scientific studies, affecting the lives and well-being of people around the world, have taken place here in Mercer County, in Princeton.

The Institute for Advanced Study has a global reputation as the home of profound scientific thinkers, having once numbered among them the great Albert Einstein. And it is safe to say that no institution of higher education is more active in the field of R and D than Princeton University.

It would take a thick volume to list the many areas of scientific research in which Princeton faculty members are involved. Recent headlines told of the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physics to Princeton professor Joseph Taylor for his discovery, with colleague Russell Hulse of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Plainsboro, of the first binary pulsar.

Almost simultaneously came an equally exciting announcement that scientists at the Plasma Physics Laboratory had extended the frontier in the generation of fusion power. Harnessing the energy of the sun and stars through atomic fusion to provide a cheap, inexhaustible source of power has long been a dream of these scientists, and their latest accomplishment of generating an unprecedented amount of power in their tokamak reactor hastens the day when that dream will become a reality.

Princeton professors also are on the cutting edge in the latest and most sophisticated developments in computer science and many other fields.

But while the achievements of Princeton scientists are universally known and recognized, it may come as a surprise to many in this area that noteworthy research work is being done at another Mercer institution --Rider College.

Dr. J. Barton Luedeke, Rider's president, points out that serious study is taking place on the Lawrence Road campus that one normally might not expect to find in large universities.

Rider faculty members are doing important and productive work in a number of areas such as cancer research, shore protection and social issues, Dr. Luedeke noted.

Several Rider professors have received and are working on grants from such institutions as the National Science Foundation and the American Cancer Society to pursue their research, he added. "These and other grants involve a fair amount of money each year, reflecting a very serious research effort on our campus."

Rider has a strong science advisory board that involves people from many areas of the corporate and scientific community, he said. "Jim Carnes, the CEO at the Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, is on the science board, and also is a member of the college's board of trustees."

Dr. Jonathan Yavelow, professor of biology, has been active for several years in research that could lead to a breakthrough in the field of cancer prevention, Dr. Luedeke said. "Dr. Yavelow is studying a protein that appears to be a total block to colon and rectal cancer," the college president said. "His research has to do with the isolation of the protein and its production in a form that people can take as cancer preventative."

The protein exists in legumes, particularly in soy beans and chick peas, and its enzymes remain active through cooking and digestive processes.

Dr. Yavelow also has been working on a $100,000 grant from the Children s Brain Tumor Foundation with a colleague, Dr. Thomas Finely of the New York University Medical Center, on a study of the role of growth factors on the development of these cancers.

Dr. Joy Schneer, assistant professor of management at the college, has done extensive research--which has been published nationally in the Wall Street Journal and other publications--on the effects of the changing family structure on managerial careers in business

One of her basic findings is that traditional family men--those with children and non-employed wives--earn 20 per-cent more per year, $12,000, than family men whose wives work. Schneer's study also shows a significant decline in the traditional family, and that post-traditional families in which both spouses are employed now outnumber traditional families, 39 to 21 percent.

This research has had a national impact, Dr. Luedeke said

Dr. Hope Corman, associate professor of economics, has done extensive research on low birth weight of children and its effect on the health, behavior and classroom performance of school-age children.

Dr. Corman in essence has found that it is better to put money up front for prenatal and neo-natal care because there is a subsequent cost to society later down the road when the children are in school, because of problems of dropout, discipline and not being able to handle class situations.

Dr. James Riggs, assistant professor of biology, has received two grants from the National Institutes of Health and the New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research in the field of auto immunology.

Dr. Luedeke said Rider faculty members also have done extensive research in the areas of erosion and pollution along the New Jersey shore. "The tourist industry is obviously very important for the state," he said, "and a clean ocean is critical in this area."