Chancellors of the three largest university systems in Texas signed an agreement this week to create a collaborative research center for the enhancement of teacher education programs across Texas.

A three-year $2.9 million grant from Houston Endowment Inc., a private philanthropic organization, will be used to establish the Center for Research, Evaluation and Advancement of Teacher Education, to be known as CREATE. The center will involve a partnership among the Texas A&M University System, the Texas State University System, and the University of Texas System.

The center's mission will include promoting research on the education of teachers, sponsoring research fellowships, disseminating research findings, and undertaking other activities to help institutions develop more effective teacher preparation programs. The institutions have not yet determined a location for the center.

The leaders said that as the center undertakes its work, the other university systems in Texas will be invited to join, as well as professional associations and government agencies.

The Texas Tech University Institute of Environmental and Human Health has received a $2 million research award from the Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program to research the effects the residue from explosives, such as TNT, have on the environment and how to clean up any contamination.

The new funding is an extension of the institute's work to determine the extent of perchlorate contamination in the water supply, in many cases, near military installations and its possible effect on humans and the environment. Perchlorate is a waterborne contaminant left over from propellants and rocket fuels.

Ronald Kendall, Ph.D., director of the Texas Tech Institute of Environmental and Human Health and principal investigator of the program says there are about 12,000 Department of Defense sites in the United States that have been used for training with live explosives.

The multi-disciplinary research will include laboratory studies to evaluate how high explosive residues are carried through the environment and its effect on organisms, said Kendall.

The institute's work on perchlorate has drawn high praise from the Environmental Protection Agency. In a letter to Philip N. Smith, Ph.D., assistant professor in the institute's Department of Environmental Toxicology and one of the chief investigators into perchlorates, the acting director of the EPA's Office of Research and Development commends Texas Tech's work. The letter notes that studies undertaken at Texas Tech have been insightful and well designed. The letter goes on to say the Texas Tech work represents some of the best targeted work in two areas: evaluating the impact of perchlorate on the ecology and the potential for indirect exposures via uptake into plants and bio-accumulation up the food chain.

So far, Texas Tech research has resulted in many publications by faculty members from the institute and other departments across the university. Kendall says his goal is that the research will become a textbook that will be widely used in regulatory and other activities addressing perchlorate contamination.

The new research funding will support 14 faculty members and several graduate students at Texas Tech and contribute to the Lubbock economy.

The grant that creates the first John S. Dunn Professorship in Biomedical Engineering will support a faculty member in the Cullen College of Engineering who can broaden course offerings, spearhead new research, and increase working relationships with the Texas Medical Center.

The university will conduct a national search to identify a candidate for the position.

The UH undergraduate biomedical engineering curriculum, currently under review by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, is expected to be launched next fall.

Matthew Franchek, chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and director of the undergraduate biomedical engineering program, said the program would emphasize biosensing and bioanalytics and include multidisciplinary courses involving natural sciences, mathematics and engineering. The college currently offers a master's degree in biomedical engineering and is seeking approval for a Ph.D. option.

Prominent Houston businessman John S. Dunn Sr. created the foundation in 1977. Dunn actively managed his insurance agency and mortgage banking firm until his death in 1982 and was a founding board member of First State Bank of Bellaire, University State Bank and University Savings Association. He also served on the boards of Hermann Hospital and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Hospital.

UH has more than 100 named professors and chairs.

Texas' new missing persons DNA database is generating a fresh sense of hope for people involved in the search for missing persons, including families worried about a missing loved one, detectives and medical examiners.

The DNA Identity Lab at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth developed the database over the past two years and started accepting DNA samples Jan. 1, 2003. Its staff of forensic geneticists will use a direct link to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to expand the search beyond Texas' borders.

Nearly 100 sheriffs, police chiefs, FBI agents, medical examiners, DPS officers gathered at the health science center Friday, March 21 to learn more about the database, receive free DNA collection kits, and tour UNTHSC's DNA lab facilities.

The lab's forensic experts will first focus on cases involving children. They will eventually help in a variety of missing persons cases, including cases involving kidnapped children, runaways, the physically or mentally disabled, and those missing after a catastrophe.

The health science center is working closely with the Texas Department of Public Safety and its Missing Persons Clearinghouse to raise awareness of the Texas DNA database.

Heidi Fischer, program specialist with the clearinghouse said the Texas DNA database offers the clearinghouse a new avenue to solve open cases that are beyond the scope of such traditional identification methods as fingerprints or dental records. When detectives have only skeletal remains or fragments of bone, they must turn to DNA testing. Cases with only the smallest fragments of materials like strands of hair or samples in bad condition, the more specialized mitochondrial DNA testing is the only option.

The health science center's DNA lab is one of only 17 facilities in North America capable of conducting mitochondrial DNA analysis, said Art Eisenberg, PhD, director of the DNA Identity Lab at the health science center.

The state legislature established the Texas Missing Persons DNA Database in 2001with $1 million from the Crime Victims' Compensation Fund. State Senator Chris Harris and State Rep. Charlie Geren sponsored the original legislation.

A deactivation of the immune system in patients infected with HIV could be one way to inhibit progression to the immunodeficiency diseases associated with AIDS, researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and Emory University report.

A study comparing the effects of immunodeficiency virus in humans to its effects in sooty mangabey monkeys, which do not become ill when infected, revealed two major differences in the monkeys' responses to the infection. The findings could open the door to groundbreaking approaches to AIDS treatments, said Dr. Donald Sodora, an assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern who contributed to the study.

The findings have been published online at www.immunity.com and will appear in a future edition of Immunity.

Mangabeys exposed to long-term, high-levels of SIV - the version of immunodeficiency virus found in primates - remain healthy and free of any sign of immune deficiency. Researchers found that this lack of symptoms occurred because, unlike humans, these primates have only low-level immune system responses when infected with SIV and do not lose their ability to make new T cells.

T cells, a cornerstone of the immune system, assist other immune cells in eliminating infection. SIV infection in primates and HIV infection in humans both cause a depletion of these cells.

In contrast to the mangabeys, humans infected with HIV respond with an aberrant activation of the immune system that leads to further destruction of these cells. This depletion is then compounded by the inability of the infected individual to adequately replace the T cells, Sodora said.

These findings influence the way in which one might think about treating an AIDS patient or developing a therapy for AIDS, Sodora said.

HIV and AIDS began to be identified in the mid-1980s. The virus had been transmitted to humans from primates among which SIV is prevalent. The two types of HIV that exist today originated from two variations of SIV present in chimpanzees (HIV-1) and mangabeys (HIV-2). In both species of primates, the host becomes infected with SIV and replicates the virus in its own T cells, but does not become ill.

Dr. Richard Koup, former chief of infectious diseases at UT Southwestern who is now at the National Institutes of Health Vaccine Research Center, and researchers Guido Silvestri and Mark Feinberg of Atlanta's Emory University School of Medicine also contributed to the NIH-funded study.

The White House has awarded Rice University faculty member Enrique Barrera the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.

Barrera, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, was honored for wide-ranging efforts to recruit inner city school children into science and mathematics, and to mentor undergraduate and graduate minority students in engineering.

Administered by the National Science Foundation, the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring recognizes outstanding mentoring efforts that enhance the participation of women, minorities and other groups that are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Through his "Materials Magic Show," Barrera has encouraged hundreds of youngsters - primarily in Houston's inner city schools - to develop a love of science and mathematics. The show combines elements of theater and laboratory science to illustrate the wonders of materials science for grade school children.

The award includes a $10,000 grant, which Barrera plans to use to enhance the show, using minority and non-minority science and engineering students to combine "Materials Magic" with a broad university-awareness program that gives insight about college, engineering, and science.

Barrera has been heavily involved in undergraduate recruiting and advising throughout his 13 years at Rice. He serves as faculty advisor to numerous groups, including Rice's student chapters of The Materials Society (TMS), the American Society of Materials (ASM), and the Mexican American Engineers and Scientists (MAES). Barrera has also served as both a resident associate and as the master of Jones College, one of nine residential colleges on the Rice campus.

Barrera actively recruits women and underrepresented minorities to pursue scholarly careers in engineering. He has graduated seven master's and six doctoral degree students and has mentored many more minority students receiving graduate degrees. Of his current and former graduate students, 50 percent are women and 50 percent are Hispanic.

Barrera also spearheaded the establishment of the Outreach to Mexico program between Rice and the University of Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico in 1994. The program brings Mexican scholars to Rice for graduate study and later positions in academia.
Barrera is also the recipient of several prestigious research awards, including the National Science Foundation's Young Investigator Award in 1993 and the National Research Council's Senior Research Fellowship in Nanotechnology at NASA's Johnson Space Center in 1999.

An economist at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) has received a grant from the Fulbright Scholars Program to conduct and present research this summer on the challenges faced by Germany as the result of the changing demographics of its population. Lessons learned by the researchers could be applied to similar problems faced by the world's largest economies, including that of the United States.

Dr. Nathan Berg of UTD's School of Social Sciences is one of 25 U.S. scholars and professionals with demographic expertise who will travel to Berlin this summer to meet with leading German researchers and government officials and examine issues such as pension and healthcare funding in aging societies like Germany and the U.S. During the three-week seminar, the related issues of immigration, labor market trends and Germany's increasing ethnic diversity will also be addressed.

Participants in the Berlin event will include top demographers, policy experts and researchers from both countries. Berg is the only economist who was selected to take part in the program.

Berg is a Cecil and Ida Green Assistant Professor of Economics and Political Economy at UTD. A microeconomist, he studies economic behavior, population change and policy.

The Fulbright Scholars Program is the U.S. government's flagship program in international educational exchange. It was proposed to Congress in 1945 by then-freshman Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. In the aftermath of World War II, Fulbright viewed the program as a much-needed vehicle for promoting "mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries of the world." Congress approved the program, and President Harry Truman signed it into law in 1946. The program is sponsored by the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and its primary source of funding is an annual appropriation from Congress.