GROUNDBREAKING SCHEDULED FOR KSMQ PUBLIC TELEVISION FACILITY

September 15, 2021 (AUSTIN, Minn.) — KSMQ Public Television will begin construction on a $5 million state-of-the-art multimedia broadcast facility by holding a ceremonial groundbreaking event on Thursday, October 7, beginning at 10:30 a.m. The new facility will be located at 107 West Oakland Ave. in Austin.

Local and state business and political leaders are expected to attend the ceremony and the public is invited to attend. There will be brief remarks by station and community leadership, weather permitting. Funding for the project is being provided by several sources: KSMQ Public Service Media, Inc.; the Austin-based Hormel Foundation; the State of Minnesota; the City of Austin; and individual members of KSMQ Public Television.

Once complete, the facility and grounds will be known as “The Broadcast Center.” The 10,200 square foot building will house the studio and offices of KSMQ Public Television and associated ventures. The building is expected to be operational during the 4th quarter of 2022.

KSMQ Public Television is a full power, federally licensed independent television station which has operated in Austin since 1972 in leased space at Riverland Community College. The station transmits its broadcast signal over a radius of 55 miles from a 1000’ tower located near Grand Meadow, MN. The new downtown facility is expected to improve efficiency allowing for more local programming to be produced.

Project management is being supplied to KSMQ Public Television by 45 North Group, Minneapolis. The principal architect is MSR Design, Minneapolis, and McGough Inc. is the general contractor. Legal representation for KSMQ is being provided by Libby Law Office in St. Paul, and Foster Garvey PC, Washington, D.C.

Media contact: Will Roozenboom 45 North Group 612.803.0944

 

 

 

Following our first feature of the COVID Gap: Addressing the Pandemic Racial Divide, KSMQ is continuing the conversation with Dr. Stephanie Low from Community Health Services, Inc. in Rochester, Minnesota. She and R-Town Associate Producer and Host Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara discuss the large divide in COVID hospitalizations and deaths between the white and black communities in Minnesota. Community Health Service Inc. (CHSI) is a federally qualified healthcare center, serving uninsured and underinsured communities in the Midwest and is dedicated to health equity.

 

 

The Hormel Institute Publishes COVID-19 Research to Aid Virus Control

Dr. Bin Liu used Cryo-EM technology to study structures of SARS-CoV-2 proofreading machine

July 27, 2021 - AUSTIN, Minn. - Dr. Bin Liu, Assistant Professor and leader of the Transcription and Gene Regulation lab at The Hormel Institute, published discoveries regarding SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. COVID-19 has infected approximately 200 million people and led to more than 4 million deaths worldwide.“This research is of broad importance to combat various emerging and re-emerging coronaviruses and will also aid in the development of effective anti-coronavirus drugs,” said Dr. Liu, who joined The Hormel Institute in 2018 from Yale University.The article “Structural basis of mismatch recognition by a SARS-CoV-2 proofreading enzyme” was published in Science (2021). It is a collaboration between Dr. Liu and Dr. Yang Yang at Iowa State University and Dr. Chang Liu at Yale University.

The study utilized cryo-electron microscopy (CryoEM), a Titan Krios considered one of the world’s most powerful electron microscopes, to study the structures of COVID-19 viral RNA proofreading machine (ExoN complex) to understand how ExoN is responsible for improving the fidelity of coronavirus RNA synthesis by removing mis-incorporated nucleotides, and how it recognizes and excises nucleotide analog inhibitors incorporated into the nascent RNA, undermining the effectiveness of first-line nucleotide analog-based antivirals. Dr. Liu plans to further study how SARS-CoV-2 replicates and transcribes RNA with the goal of developing improved anti-coronavirus therapies.“We believe our studies will be of broad interest to scientists in the fields of coronavirus, cryo-electron microscopy, replication/transcription and mismatch correction,” said Dr. Liu.Thanks to the support of The Hormel Foundation, The Hormel Institute’s CryoEM was added as part of the 2016 expansion. It is one of the world’s most powerful electron microscopes and inMinnesota, this microscope expertise is only found at The Hormel Institute. It allows HI’s cryoEM team of scientists (structural biologists) to see the structure of some of the smallest parts of our bodies – down to the near-atomic level.

Full paper is accessible at: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/07/26/science.abi9310