Accomplishments of the past year offer proof that we are on the move! You will read about many of them in this issue, which marks the 20th anniversary of Synergy, making it one of the oldest continuously-published communications at Ohio State. We will revisit the past and take a look at some of the things we were doing 20, 15, 10 and five years ago. Then, as now, biological sciences research continues to make news. In these pages, we are committed to providing you with information about some of the latest, leading-edge research being done by our faculty and students.

We are very proud of our students; our cover story chronicles a unique student idea that blossomed into one of the university's most successful outreach efforts: to take a roving DNA laboratory into Columbus high schools to solve a "crime."

This year we hired several outstanding new faculty members, among them the new Ohio Eminent Scholar in Molecular Genetics, Stephen Osmani from Pennsylvania State University's College of Medicine and the Weis Center for Research. Osmani' s work on cell cycle regulation has important implications for the understanding and treatment of cancer.

The Ohio Board of Regents funded a new initiative to be based at Ohio State, and we named F. Robert Tabita, our Eminent Scholar in Microbiology, as its director. The Plant-Microbe Genomics Facility involves researchers from the University of Toledo and Ohio University as well as Ohio State. This new facility will allow Ohio universities to play an important role as the "Biotech Century" unfolds and make significant contributions to the development of genomics research, particularly plant and microbial genetics. It will also have a positive impact on student training capabilities.

As always, several faculty members, staff and students received significant honors this past year, and these are detailed elsewhere in this issue.

Membership in our dynamic Alumni Society is growing. If you have not already joined this great group of people, we hope that you will soon do so. It continues to devise and carry out activities important to the college and to its students, current and future. Its Recruiting Committee initiated the first-ever Alumni Society Calling Nights for the Admissions Office nearly two years ago. Read about their successful ongoing work to convince some of the country's top young high school students to enroll in Ohio State in "Going the Extra Mile."

In early November, we hosted our first reception for minority alumni and students to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the founding of Ohio State's Office of Minority Affairs and initiate an outreach effort to members of traditionally under-represented groups in our student body.

This past year has been a great jump-start for research and educational activities in the "most exciting scientific arena of the 21st Century." I am confident that it will only get better!

I hope you enjoy this issue. Have a wonderful new year.

Sincerely,