Birthday party benefits police athletic league

The Richmond Police Athletic League got a $1,686 boost from Rob Ukrop's 39th birthday on April 2. For his 13th annual celebration at Chuck E. Cheese, the birthday boy provided the pizza and tokens. Participants contributed $1 or more to support the league.

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Dominion Virginia Power has donated $400,000 in smart-grid equipment and started a $45,000 fellowship fund at the Virginia Tech engineering school.

The equipment is the most advanced generation of microprocessor-based high-voltage transmission protection systems, said Matthew Gardner, an electric transmission planner for Dominion Virginia Power who has bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees from Virginia Tech.

The equipment -- identical to what is being installed on the utility's power system -- is used to monitor the operations and power flows on the transmission grid, as well as detecting and locating system faults, Gardner said.

The four units will be installed this spring in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering's power engineering laboratories in Whittemore Hall on the Virginia Tech campus.

The fellowship fund will pay tuition, fees and a stipend for a master's student in power engineering. The student also would intern and then possibly work for the Richmond-based energy company. The sponsorship will expand to multiple years if successful, Gardner said.

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Virginia Commonwealth University researchers will be testing a way to possibly starve cancerous tumors to death, funded by a $449,556 grant from Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

The VCU research builds on the discovery of a metabolite, sphingosine-1-phosphate, that causes cancer cells to grow, spread and establish new blood vessels to develop into a tumor. Sarah Spiegel, head of biochemistry and molecular biology at VCU, discovered the metabolite known as S1P and has developed an inhibitor to suppress its production.

Dr. Kazuaki Takabe will lead the Komen-funded research investigating the effectiveness of this inhibitor in cell and in animal models. The ultimate question will be whether the compound can develop into a new drug against breast cancer, introducing a treatment approach to improve current medical regimens, Takabe said.

The VCU grant is part of $60 million in research that Komen will fund worldwide in 2009.

Contact Katherine Calos at (804) 649-6433 or .