Shirley Bird Perry, vice chancellor for development and external relations for the University of Texas System, has announced plans to retire after more than 40 years of service with the System and U.T. Austin. Her retirement will be effective March 1, 2004.

Perry has served as vice chancellor for development and external relations since 1992. In that position she has directed fund-raising operations, public affairs activities, management of estates and trusts, event planning, and other activities.

Before coming to the U.T. System, she was vice president for development and university relations at U.T. Austin under Presidents Peter T. Flawn and William H. Cunningham. Earlier, President Flawn had appointed her as assistant to the president and coordinator of the university centennial observance, which culminated in 1983.

Perry served as director of the Texas Union from 1972 to 1976. She began at the Union as program director in 1958.

Her U.T. service was interrupted only twice since then. She was a teacher in California in 1959-60 and was with the Association of College Unions-International from 1976 to 1979.

Perry holds bachelor's and master's degrees from U.T. Austin.

Dr. Victoria E. Rodríguez, interim dean of graduate studies since November 2002, has been appointed vice provost and dean of graduate studies at The University of Texas at Austin.

Rodríguez, who became a vice provost in 2001, was named interim dean when the position of vice president and dean of graduate studies was merged into the portfolio of Dr. Sheldon Ekland-Olson, executive vice president and provost.

The vice president and dean of graduate studies position became vacant in September 2002 when Dr. Teresa Sullivan resigned to become executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at The University of Texas System.

Rodríguez received a bachelor's degree from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, a master's degree from The University of Texas at El Paso, and a doctor's degeree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining The University of Texas at Austin in 1991, Rodríguez held teaching positions at the University of California, San Diego and The University of Texas at El Paso. She was also a research associate at the University of Cambridge.

Her scholarly work has focused on governance, democratization and political change in Mexico. In addition to numerous books, articles and book chapters on Mexican politics and public policy, she is the author of "Decentralization in Mexico: From Reforma Municipal to Solidaridad to Nuevo Federalismo." Her work includes path-breaking research and two books on women in Mexican politics: "Women's Participation in Mexican Political Life" and "Women in Contemporary Mexican Politics."

Rodríguez also has been a consultant for the World Bank. In 2000 she received jointly with Professor Peter Ward the Ohtli Medal, the highest honor granted by the Mexican government outside Mexico. Hispanic Business magazine named her as one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in the United States in 2002.

The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) Associate Vice President for Outreach Services Michele Bobadilla has received the highest national award given by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the Raymond Telles Award for Education.

The award recognizes exceptional achievement and community service. Recipients are selected by an awards committee appointed by the national LULAC president.

Bobadilla is chair of the LULAC National Educational Service Center in Dallas, a national commissioner to the National LULAC Education Commission and recently co-chaired the National LULAC Education Summit of Texas at UTA.

Criteria for the award includes achievements in the field, awards, contributions to the community, proven leadership, accomplishments, volunteerism, actions, and projects advancing the League's mission. Bobadilla is a member of the LULAC Women's Hall of Fame.

The Advanced Research Program was cut from the state budget just before it was signed by Governor Perry at midnight on Sunday, June 22. The ARP competition will not be held in 2003. All existing ARP pre-proposals will be given new statuses -- probably "Do Not Continue" -- later on Friday.

The Advanced Technology Program and Technology Development and Transfer Program will continue as scheduled.

The Advanced Research Program (ARP) and the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) were created by the Texas Legislature in 1987 as competitive, peer-reviewed grants programs to fund scientific and engineering research projects of faculty members at Texas higher education institutions. The programs are administered by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

A new finding revealing that the drug finasteride reduces the risk of prostate cancer by nearly 25 percent represents the culmination of three decades of research that began in the early 1970s at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

A study released online this week by The New England Journal of Medicine shows that finasteride, which is already proven effective as a therapy for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) - or enlargement of the prostate - also delays or prevents prostate cancer and reduces the risk of urinary problems. However, the drug has significant sexual side effects and may increase the risk of high-grade prostate cancer in some patients, the study reports. The study will appear in the July 17 print edition of the journal.

Finasteride inhibits the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone by the enzyme 5-alpha reductase. By doing so, it reduces the level of dihydrotestosterone - the primary androgen in the prostate that is involved in the development of prostate cancer - by 90 percent.

The findings released today are the result of the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial, a 7-year study involving 9,457 men. UT Southwestern participated as a trial site in this study.

Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of death from cancer in men in the United States, and the most common non-skin cancer in America. The American Cancer Society estimates that 220,900 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed in the United States in 2003.

The prostate is a walnut-sized gland just beneath the bladder that secretes one of the primary components of seminal fluid.

Dr. Jean Wilson first envisioned the drug that became finasteride in the early 1970s. Dr. Wilson wrote a pivotal paper published in 1974 in The New England Journal of Medicine, in which he wrote that men with a rare genetic disorder - 5-alpha reductase deficiency - did not develop normal prostates or prostatic enlargement. He theorized at the time that reproducing this condition artificially may lead to nonsurgical treatment of an enlarged prostate. He later identified the genes that encode for 5-alpha reductase.

Dr. David Russell, a UT Southwestern professor of molecular genetics, cloned the 5-alpha reductase enzyme in the early 1990s and published his findings in Nature. He also hypothesized that 5-alpha reductase may play a role in preventing prostate cancer.

Building on this work, a Merck scientist developed finasteride, which is manufactured by Merck as Proscar. Dr. McConnell led a four-year clinical trial of the drug ending in 1998. The drug has shown to shrink the prostate by 20 percent to 30 percent and to significantly reduce the need for surgical intervention and the risk of acute urinary retention.

Dr. Roehrborn, who has been involved in the testing of Proscar, wrote a paper last fall about dutasteride, a drug developed by GlaxoSmithKline that is also designed to replicate the effects of 5-alpha reductase deficiency. Dutasteride is also used in the treatment of BPH, and GlaxoSmithKline is planning a prostate cancer prevention trial as well.

Richard Wallace, MD, professor of medicine and microbiology at The University of Texas Health Center at Tyler, has been elected to fellowship in the American Academy of Microbiology.

The academy is the honorary leadership group within the American Society of Microbiology. Election to the fellowship is a lifetime achievement award granted by the society to recognize excellence, originality, and creativity. Dr. Wallace, who has been at the Health Center since 1982, was inducted into the fellowship at the society's 103rd general meeting May 21 in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Wallace is chairman of UTHCT's Department of Microbiology. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and a diplomate of the subspecialty of infectious diseases.

He is the author or co-author of more than 290 scientific papers, most related to studies of the family of bacteria known as mycobacteria. His major scientific contributions include defining drug treatments for numerous species of mycobacteria, the use of DNA fingerprinting to define mycobacterial disease outbreaks, and the naming of eight new species of mycobacteria in collaboration with other investigators at the Health Center and other institutions, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

A research team led by scientists at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston has located a genetic key to an inherited cardiovascular disease that develops stealthily, is hard to diagnose, and often kills with little warning.

By studying four generations of a Midwestern family heavily afflicted by thoracic aortic aneurysm and dissection, researchers mapped a genetic variation that causes the disorder to a narrow portion of chromosome 3. Their report is in the rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Thoracic aortic aneurysms occur in the aorta - the body's main artery - as it emerges from the heart and arches upward before continuing down into the abdomen. Aortic aneurysms develop virtually without symptoms - the walls of the aorta slowly bulge over time. As it grows larger the aneurysm is prone to split, or dissect, an event that is most often lethal. Patients usually feel chest pain before their aneurysm dissects, said senior author Dianna Milewicz, M.D., Ph.D., Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist, director of medical genetics, and vice chair of the medical school's department of internal medicine. But when they seek care they are often tested for heart attack and then sent home with a diagnosis of heartburn or anxiety.

In the current study, the research team analyzed the DNA of 52 family members, 15 of whom had suffered an aortic aneurysm or a dissection. The identified portion of chromosome 3 harbors 184 known, predicted or potential genes. Ongoing research in Milewicz's lab seeks to narrow the search to a specific culprit gene.

Milewicz's group previously mapped the only known major susceptibility locus for familial thoracic aortic aneurysm and dissection (TAAD) to chromosome 5. That portion of the chromosome, named TAAD1, was found to affect nine out of 15 families studied. The family in the present study was not affected by TAAD1. An additional locus identified on chromosome 11 by a research team at Cornell University, in collaboration with Milewicz, was found to affect one family.

Other families afflicted by the disease are not affected by these three known locations in the genome.

Identifying and characterizing the culprit genes at TAAD1 and at the newly identified TAAD2 on chromosome 3 will provide insight on the root causes of thoracic aneurysm and dissection, Milewicz said. Defining how the genes work will help physicians identify people at risk and develop new treatments.

People with the connective tissue disorder Marfan syndrome also are susceptible to thoracic aortic aneurysm. Marfan syndrome was not a factor among the families studied to locate TAAD1 and TAAD2.

Co-authors from The UT Medical School at Houston include lead author and graduate student Sumera Hasham, Ph.D.; Dong-chuan Guo, Ph.D., assistant professor of medical genetics; post-doctoral fellow Rumin He, Ph.D., and Van Tran, M.S., instructor of medical genetics. Additional co-authors are Steven Scherer, Ph.D., assistant professor, Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine; Sanjay S. Shete, Ph.D., assistant professor of epidemiology at the UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center; and Marcia Willing, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor, and Ann Muilenberg, M.A., project consultant, both of the University of Iowa Department of Pediatrics

Texas Tech University System Chancellor David R. Smith, M.D., and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center President M. Roy Wilson, M.D., accepted a gift of $1.5 million on June 25 from Texas Tech supporter, Shirley L. Garrison. The gift will benefit the Institute for Healthy Aging at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.

Wilson said the gift will be used to endow a chair in geriatrics as well as help fund geriatric research, especially in the area of Alzheimer's disease.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 55 million people in the United States are more than 55 years of age. Thirty-four million are over 65 and that figure is estimated to double by 2030. In the next 10 years, 75 million baby boomers will begin to reach the age of 65. The CDC calls it the longevity revolution.

The CDC also shows that almost one-third of the total U.S. health care expenditures, or about US$300 billion each year, are for older adults.

Glen Provost, chair of the Institute for Healthy Aging, said this endowment is a challenge gift. "Mr. Garrison has stipulated that the health sciences center match these funds of $1.5 million over the next three years. Geriatrics is a Texas Tech priority, and a generous challenge such as this provides us with an even greater incentive to bring in additional financial resources to support this important area of education and research."

The gift is one of many contributions by the Garrison family to Texas Tech. Recently the Garrisons contributed to the establishment of the Mildred and Shirley L. Garrison Professorship in Geriatric Nursing which promotes interdisciplinary research, teaching, clinical practice and publication in gerontological nursing.

In 2000, the Garrison family provided generous support that helped make possible the establishment of the Mildred and Shirley L. Garrison Geriatric Education and Care Center creating a collaboration between the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center and Sears Methodist Retirement System Inc., establishing the first teaching nursing home on a university campus. The Garrison Center is a state-of-the-art long-term facility that features a five-wing design and includes 120 beds, 60 for skilled care and 60 for Alzheimer's patients and other age-related dementia care, as well as classrooms, medical examination facilities and telemedicine capabilities.

Garrison, whose family has a particular interest in research in the area of Alzheimer's disease, said the issue of geriatric health care is an issue that should interest all people.

The University of North Texas recently received a total of $900,000 from the Welch Foundation for the support of research into some of chemistry's most complex issues.

The US$900,000 will be divided among six professors from UNT who will each receive US$50,000 a year for three years. The chemical research at UNT supported by the Welch Foundation ranges from Dr. Paul Braterman's research on the control of structure and reactivity in layered double hydroxides to Dr. Ruthanne Thomas' research on organolithium clusters.

Braterman, a Regents Professor of chemistry at UNT, plans to use surfactants, or soaplike molecules, to control the growth of the layered double hydroxides, a claylike mineral. The patterns formed by the new hybrid soap-clay material are relevant to the understanding and controlling of self-assembly --how things assemble themselves-- such as seashells and bone.

The hybrid material also has potential to be used in the removal of radioactive waste and other contaminants from the water. In addition, it could possibly be used to reduce the impact of fires in buildings by improving heat resistance in polymers and plastics.

Thomas, chair of the UNT Department of Chemistry, and her students will study organolithium clusters and how different structures affect the reactivity using spectroscopic methods they developed. The new information gained by this research should allow better design of reactions using organolithium compounds and may lead to the design of new and better organolithium reagents. Organolithium compounds have many important commercial uses ranging from the synthesis of drugs to the preparation of polymeric materials used in truck tires and tennis shoes.

The four other professors who will receive part of the US$900,000 from the Welch Foundation include:
-Dr. Witold Brostow, a UNT Regents Professor of material sciences, and his research on uncrosslinked and crosslinked macromolecular systems: From thermodynamics to properties
-Dr. Jeffry A. Kelber, UNT professor of chemistry, and his research on the reactions of ultrathin ordered oxides in non-UHV environments
-Dr. Floyd D. McDaniel, UNT professor of physics, and his research on the impurity characterization in compound semiconductor materials
-Dr. Martin Schwartz, a UNT Regents Professor of chemistry, and his research on the electronic structure and properties of conducting polymers

KPMG has committed a lead gift to Mays Business School at Texas A&M University for the creation of a faculty chair in accounting. The chair will be used to support the teaching, research, service and professional development activities of a nationally recognized accounting scholar. KPMG's US$500,000 gift is being matched by Texas A&M University to create the US$1 million KPMG Chair in Accounting.

The past support of KPMG for Texas A&M is tangibly reflected by the existence of faculty and scholarship endowments with a value of more than US$1 million.

KPMG is an accounting and tax firm that has maintained a continuous commitment throughout its history to provide leadership, integrity, and quality to capital markets. The "Big Four" firm with the strongest growth record over the past decade, KPMG offers clients the scale, global reach, industry insights, and multidisciplinary range of services they demand. KPMG is the U.S. member firm of KPMG International. KPMG International's member firms have nearly 100,000 professionals, including 6,600 partners, in 150 countries.

KPMG's gift counts in the One Spirit One Vision Campaign, the university's multi-year fund-raising effort. The campaign goal is to help Texas A&M attain national top 10 status among public universities while sustaining the distinctive Texas A&M spirit. The volunteer-led campaign, coordinated by the Texas A&M Foundation, encompasses all private gifts benefiting Texas A&M.

A federal appropriation of US$100,000 to the at The University of Texas at Dallas Health Science Center San Antonio by the 107th U.S. Congress will fund the first and only U.S. Hispanic Nutrition Research and Education Center. This center will be located in the Regional Academic Health Center facility in Harlingen, which also houses the year-old RAHC Medical Education Division.

The U.S. Hispanic Nutrition Research and Education Center is a long-term effort by the Health Science Center to understand how diet and nutrition - in combination with genetic, social, psychological, socioeconomic, cultural and environmental factors - affect the health and wellness of the U.S. Hispanic population, according to Dr. Leonel Vela, regional dean, Regional Academic Health Center, and principal investigator of the project.

The RAHC is located in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, which is one of the fastest growing regions in the country. This area is home to high rates of diabetes and other infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, dengue fever and hepatitis. This confluence of factors makes the region an ideal location for researching how nutrition impacts health and disease in the Hispanic population.

The Nonprofit Management Center will become a part of the Center for Building Community at Abilene Christian University on July 1.

The announcement was made jointly by Dr. Gary McCaleb, vice president of ACU and executive director of the Center for Building Community, and Terri Burke, president of the Management Center's board of directors.

The NMC, begun as a project of the Community Foundation of Abilene in 1987, provides management assistance to more than 750 nonprofits in the 23-county Big Country area. The NMC offers seminars on grant writing, nonprofit management for paid staff, board of director training and serves as a resource center for area nonprofits. The Center, together with KTXS and the Abilene Reporter-News, annually sponsors the Precious Jewels and Jefferson Awards programs to recognize volunteerism in the region.

The Center for Building Community, established in 1999, is multifaceted in programming, perhaps best known to the public for the Distinguished Speakers on Community series which has included Congressman J.C. Watts, former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto, coach John Wooden, Linda Chavez and Knight Kiplinger.

The move will give the NMC a solid base and greater potential as well, Burke said.

The NMC will be under the direction of Bill Culp, chair of ACU's Department of Sociology and Social Work, and will continue to be staffed by Mary McWillliams, who has been with the organization for nearly two years.

The Nonprofit Management Center will be relocated to 1926 Campus Court, across form the main ACU campus, joining the ACU Pruett Gerontology Center in that facility.