THE HOGAN YEARS: - University of Massachusetts Lowell

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and, incidentally, met a U.S. Marine
from Lowell named Drakoulakos.
“When Peter and I first met he
couldn’t understand a word I said
because I had a much thicker Northern
Ireland accent at the time, she says.”
He was very Boston and I couldn’t
understand him.”
They solved that problem, obviously,
because they soon became engaged,
and were married in Ireland in 2002.
He returned to Lowell, where he is
now a police officer, and she joined
him six months later after completing
law school.
Of all the places she has lived,
Drakoulakos liked Pakistan the best.
“I loved it there,” she says. “I really
loved a lot of things about that country.
Some of it was hard to deal with but it
was a nice experience and I miss it
sometimes.”
Being one who likes to “keep my
mind busy,” Drakoulakos is taking
classes toward a master’s degree in
criminal justice. “If I decide to practice
law, I want to know more about the
system here,” she says.
Meanwhile, she learned to speak
Egyptian Arabic in preparation for a
vacation with her parents to that
country. As she did with Turkish, she
taught herself the language with a
10-day CD course. Of all the languages
she has become conversant in, she says,
“Arabic is the most difficult so far.”
Oddly enough, after all her travels,
she says, “The biggest culture shock I
ever had was when I moved to the
states.” She found it to be very big and,
unlike her hometown in Ireland, she
couldn’t walk everywhere she wanted
to go. And, at first, she found it hard
to make friends.
“So, I was happy when I started
working here because there are some
wonderful people at the University,”
she says.
DARPA Funds Bold Research on Limb Regeneration
Profs. Susan Braunhut and Kenneth Marx have teamed up to pursue a
“mind-blowing” innovation—to cause a limb to re-grow in an adult mammal.
The UMass Lowell research
group has joined groups from five
other institutions and secured
funding from the Defense
Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA). The UMass
Lowell portion of the DARPA
grant is $1.2 million for the first
two years, with an anticipated
continuation of $1.4 million for
the next two years.
Research
One form of newt, the Eastern or red-spotted newt—
capable of limb regeneration, will be studied. (Photo
courtesy of Dr. Shannon Odelberg)
The research groups expect that
by working together they will gain a more complete understanding of the cellular
and molecular processes that allow certain creatures, such as salamanders, to
completely regenerate lost limbs, and be able to harness this capacity in mammals.
“As a consortium, we’re putting together our knowledge of stem cells, tissue
development and healing, extracellular matrix, growth factors and the regulation of
gene expression,” says Braunhut. “We’re encouraged by research results and recent
discoveries and we believe this goal is attainable.”
The implications of such research are especially evident considering that the
wounded soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq include twice the number of
The UML lab team members are, clockwise from left front, Anita Arun, Prof. Susan Braunhut,
Vikram Shankar, Matt Belmonte, Dr. Ekaterina Vorotnikova, Soumya Vemuri and Donna
McIntosh; not pictured, Doanh Mai and Rachel Mendes.
6 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE WINTER 2007