Baseball interview vs. Minnesota

Ronnie Green Author

03/29/2021 Added

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Ronnie Green talks about reaching the milestone of using local guidance to safely welcome fans at limited attendance levels at Husker sporting events. Green talks about a recent research receiving attention led by Nicole Buan to create the main chemical component of synthetic rubber from microorganisms instead of processing it from petroleum.

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[00:00:00.550]All right, Ben, we are delighted to be joined
[00:00:02.180]by the Chancellor of the University of Nebraska,
[00:00:03.910]Ronnie Green, who always has a smile on his face
[00:00:06.850]but maybe a bigger one today.
[00:00:08.460]It's just, Chancellor, it's great to look out here
[00:00:10.840]at Haymarket Park and see folks in the stands.
[00:00:13.080]Baseball was the last Husker event a year ago
[00:00:15.960]that had an attendance.
[00:00:17.310]A mid-week game right before everything got shut down.
[00:00:19.780]And I just want to tell,
[00:00:21.030]and I've told everybody that I've talked to,
[00:00:23.010]kudos to you, to Bill Moose.
[00:00:24.800]You guys have pushed and pushed and pushed
[00:00:26.670]and you finally got some fans to be able to come
[00:00:28.810]through these wonderful gates of Husker Athletics.
[00:00:31.200]So, congratulations!
[00:00:32.750]You deserve it.
[00:00:34.730]Yeah. Well, Greg it's a milestone, right,
[00:00:38.260]in the (chuckles) journey we've been on for now over a year
[00:00:42.280]to be at a point where finally
[00:00:45.210]we can use local guidance to safely protect
[00:00:49.640]our fans and our student athletes
[00:00:51.821]and staff at conference events on our campuses.
[00:00:56.122]I think it's pretty well known
[00:00:57.740]that last fall we felt we were
[00:01:00.395]in a position where we could have done that safely
[00:01:02.150]at some level for football,
[00:01:03.740]but it was the decision of the conference
[00:01:06.450]through the seasons, both in football and up to this point
[00:01:10.570]in competition to protect the communities involved
[00:01:14.240]to limit, you know, a very limited fan attendance
[00:01:18.350]to families for conference events.
[00:01:21.180]So to be here now this weekend
[00:01:22.970]and be in this four game series
[00:01:24.300]with Minnesota and be able to see people, you know,
[00:01:27.180]at Haymarket Park is a great thing.
[00:01:31.120]Looking forward to the rest of the season, obviously,
[00:01:34.050]and for our fan base to be able to be involved
[00:01:37.530]with both baseball and women's softball
[00:01:39.710]as well over at bowling.
[00:01:41.690]And then, you know, volleyball.
[00:01:43.439]We actually get our last two matches
[00:01:45.840]with Penn State coming up here later this week
[00:01:49.333]with some opportunity to see our seniors go off
[00:01:53.480]with some fans in Bob Devaney.
[00:01:56.062]So just a real milestone in the journey we've been on
[00:01:59.330]and very pleased to be able to re-engage our fans.
[00:02:03.510]Our wonderful fans, and I can tell they're smiling.
[00:02:06.160]Even though they're wearing their masks,
[00:02:07.400]I can tell they're smiling.
[00:02:08.360]And obviously this will impact the spring football game.
[00:02:10.988]They're smiling with their eyes.
[00:02:13.325](chuckles) That's exactly right.
[00:02:14.720]Well, let's talk about some things
[00:02:15.900]that are happening at the university.
[00:02:18.230]You may not have enough time to fill all this in
[00:02:20.030]but let's talk about an example of how research
[00:02:22.320]at the university is also in the early stages
[00:02:24.950]with some potential, for some big impact.
[00:02:27.260]What can you tell us?
[00:02:29.470]Yeah, well, you know, we do research
[00:02:31.890]and long-term research all the time
[00:02:33.500]but some recent research that has received some attention
[00:02:36.870]out of our Department of Biochemistry and Dr. Nicole Buan
[00:02:40.250]who is the leader of this research there.
[00:02:42.640]And she also is currently President
[00:02:44.640]of our Faculty Senate at UNL.
[00:02:48.460]She is working on taking a problem
[00:02:53.030]and turning it into a real opportunity
[00:02:55.910]in a new way to create Isoprene,
[00:02:58.260]which is the chemical principle component
[00:03:02.890]of synthetic rubber and making a rubber.
[00:03:06.050]Roughly 800,000 tons of Isoprene are refined
[00:03:09.950]from petroleum every year,
[00:03:12.680]and what Nicole's doing is she's genetically engineered
[00:03:16.520]a single celled microorganism
[00:03:18.500]with the gene from a tree, a Poplar tree in this case,
[00:03:22.630]that converts carbon into Isoprene.
[00:03:27.210]So instead of isolating it from petro
[00:03:30.460]or making a petrochemical,
[00:03:32.470]it's done by genetic engineering in this way.
[00:03:36.620]It makes it really especially promising
[00:03:39.030]that these microorganisms actually benefit themselves
[00:03:42.680]by making Isoprene.
[00:03:46.560]They're actually growing more than they usually would
[00:03:49.843]as part of their processes.
[00:03:50.676]So I think you can kind of see how it's a win-win, right.
[00:03:53.990]It's dealing with a tricky process
[00:03:57.240]to make synthetic rubber from petro products.
[00:04:00.090]Now doing it in a natural process this way
[00:04:02.770]with a lot of promise and opportunity there.
[00:04:06.150]So their next step in the research
[00:04:07.820]is optimizing that process
[00:04:09.550]and being able to move it into a kind of commercial use.
[00:04:13.760]So congratulations to Nicole and her team and Biochemistry
[00:04:17.436]on kind of leading-edge research in this arena.
[00:04:21.093]Absolutely. It's always so exciting
[00:04:22.390]to hear you talk about projects and events
[00:04:24.310]and things that are happening on our campus.
[00:04:26.130]It is such wonderful news to hear.
[00:04:28.240]And again, Chancellor, on behalf of Husker nation,
[00:04:30.330]let me just thank you again.
[00:04:32.040]You have been a big driver
[00:04:33.710]behind getting athletics to be on the playing surfaces
[00:04:36.550]and on the playing fields all season long.
[00:04:38.390]And now fans back in the stands.
[00:04:40.210]I don't know if we would have got there
[00:04:41.510]without your influence in the conference.
[00:04:43.450]Thank you so much.
[00:04:44.283]Enjoy the game today.
[00:04:47.160]We will and just to call out to Bill Moose here.
[00:04:50.480]Bill has been hard at work on this to get to this point
[00:04:54.020]and can't appreciate his efforts enough.
[00:04:55.930]So it's great to be here.
[00:04:57.096]Go Big Red.
[00:04:58.660]There he is,
[00:04:59.493]Chancellor of the University of Nebraska - Lincoln,
[00:05:00.530]Ronnie Green.
[00:05:01.363]We'll have first pitch coming up next
[00:05:02.470]from Learfield IMG college.
[00:05:04.150]This is the Husker Sports Network.

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Baseball interview vs. Minnesota

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