University News
Professor Hiroshi Komiyama elected as New President of the University of Tokyo
Effective from April 2005, Professor Hiroshi Komiyama will assume presidential leadership at the University of Tokyo, taking over from Professor Takeshi Sasaki. He will serve as President for a term of four years from 2005 to 2008.
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Trichopoulos to Receive $5.8 million 'Innovator Award' Grant
A renowned cancer epidemiologist, Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) Professor Dimitrios Trichopoulos, has received a U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) "Innovator Award" to explore fetal and early-life factors associated with adult breast cancer, including whether exposure to hormones such as estrogens and insulin-like growth factors while in the womb may cause the disease years later.
The grant, for $5.8 million over five years, is given by the DoD's Breast Cancer Research Program of the Office of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs. The Innovator Award recognizes individuals who have a "history of visionary scholarship, leadership, and creativity."
Since 1990, Trichopoulos has advanced a theory that exposure to certain levels of naturally occurring hormones amplifies the number of undifferentiated cells in the mammary glands of female fetuses. During cell division in later life, mutations in this broader pool of cells are associated with increased risk for breast cancer. Larger mammary glands have more cells at risk. The size of mammary glands is not reflected in breast size, which is largely determined by body fat.
The theory is supported by evidence presented in epidemiologic studies that indicate certain early-life conditions, such as large birth size, are associated with breast cancer risk. In addition, correlates of mammary gland mass, such as the density of breast tissue, are considered to be predictors of breast cancer risk.
With the Innovator Award, Trichopoulos and colleagues in the United States, Sweden, and Greece will undertake a series of five complementary studies designed to investigate links between early-life exposures, mammary gland stem cells, mammary gland mass, and adult breast cancer.
Trichopoulos is well-known for his research establishing a link between passive smoking and lung cancer, and was a 2004 recipient of the Julius B. Richmond Award, the highest honor conferred by HSPH, for his research into secondhand smoke. He also has shed light on a host of other health issues, including the role of the Mediterranean diet in decreasing cancer and heart disease risk and increasing longevity.
UTD Professor Wins $1.5-Million NIH Grant To Improve Cochlear Implant Devices
When cochlear implants were introduced in the 1980’s, the prosthetic devices, which are surgically implanted in the inner ear, opened up a world of hearing to many who were profoundly deaf. The implants, which deliver electrical stimuli to the auditory nerve thus providing at least partial hearing, have improved to the point where most patients with the devices are able to carry on a conversation without lip-reading or signing, and some are able to use the telephone.
But the devices are not perfect. Many users have difficulty hearing in noisy conditions, such as those found in a restaurant or other public place. In addition, the simple process of listening to music may be fraught with frustration, having been likened by some patients as hearing “noise with rhythm.”
In an effort to improve the performance of cochlear implants, and the hearing of those who use them, the National Institutes of Health this month provided a faculty member at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) a five-year, $1.5-million grant to program the prosthesis to operate more effectively in a range of listening conditions.
“Currently, cochlear implant patients are fitted with a single program that is used in every listening situation,” said grant recipient Dr. Philip C. Loizou, an electrical engineering professor in UTD’s Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. “The goal of the NIH-funded project is to develop new signal-processing algorithms tailored for music and noise. In the near future, we envision patients being fitted with at least three distinct programs – one they can use in relatively quiet environments, one for noisy environments and another for listening to music.”
Loizou’s project will include testing involving cochlear implant patients from the Otolaryngology Department at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. In addition, the study will tap the clinical expertise of UT Southwestern physicians, as well as audiologists at the famed Callier Center for Communication Disorders at UTD.
Unlike hearing aids, which amplify sound, cochlear implants bypass the outer, middle and inner ear and directly stimulate auditory nerve fibers, which send information to the brain. The devices have proven to be beneficial to children and adults who have severe to profound hearing loss and who cannot hear or understand speech with hearing aids.
The implants were first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1985, and since then more than 20,000 individuals, including more than 8,000 children, have received cochlear implants.
Loizou, who joined the faculty at UTD in 1999, directs two laboratories at the university – the Cochlear Implant Laboratory and the Speech Processing Lab. He earned three degrees (B.S., M.S. and Ph.D.) in electrical engineering from Arizona State University.
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Cyberlaw Expert Jonathan Zittrain Elected to Oxford’s First Chair of Internet Governance and Regulation
Internationally-known cyberlaw scholar Jonathan Zittrain will become the first holder of the Chair in Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University’s Oxford Internet Institute (OII) this autumn.
With his appointment, the OII will play an increasingly significant role in stimulating and informing debate over Internet governance at a time when the future of the Internet and PC is at a potential point of transformation.
Professor Bill Dutton, Director of the OII, said that Professor Zittrain’s arrival signals the OII’s intention to integrate worldwide thinking across the social sciences, law, and technology. ‘Professor Zittrain does not simply study the Internet from afar. He also builds on it,’ said Dutton. ‘Such active research is an important part of the OII’s mission.’
Professor Zittrain (BS Yale, MPA, JD Harvard) joins the OII from his post as the Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman Assistant Professor for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, where he co-founded the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. He will coordinate a significant research and teaching relationship between the two centres, and become the Berkman Visiting Professor at Harvard. His recent research includes the study of Internet filtering by national governments, the role of intermediaries as points of control in Internet architecture, and the taxation of Internet commerce. He is the founder of the H2O Project, which produces simple, unobtrusive but novel tools for use in classrooms, and is co-founder of the Chilling Effects web site, where Google and others report requests that information be censored.
Zittrain has also been named a Professorial Fellow of Oxford’s Keble College, which has developed particular interest in computer science and public policy.
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Robert Rosner named Director of Argonne National Laboratory
The University of Chicago has appointed Robert Rosner to the directorship of Argonne National Laboratory effective April 18. His appointment was approved by Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman.
Rosner succeeds Hermann Grunder, who has served as Director of the Laboratory since 2000.
Rosner has served as Argonne’s Associate Laboratory Director for physical, biological and computing sciences and as its Chief Scientist since 2002, and in those roles he implemented reinvigorating changes in multiple areas of research while also achieving an outstanding record in safety and security, according to University of Chicago President Don M. Randel. In addition, he was the architect of Argonne’s 20-year strategic plan for science and technology.
Rosner’s appointment culminates a six-month national search by a search committee comprising representatives from the University of Chicago, Argonne and industry. Chairing the committee was Harvey Plotnick, a University Trustee and a member of Argonne’s Board of Governors.
As Chief Scientist at Argonne, Rosner oversaw the laboratory’s scientific programs and research and planning activities, and served as the chief proponent of collaborations between Argonne and the University of Chicago, other universities and other national laboratories.
As Associate Laboratory Director, he led an organization consisting of eight divisions and four national user facilities, with an annual budget of more than $200 million and a staff of more than 800 scientific and engineering personnel. In the area of high-energy physics, he was instrumental in the creation of the Accelerator Institute, addressing one of the “Grand Challenges” of the DOE Office of Science.
Rosner also is the William Wrather Distinguished Service Professor in the University of Chicago’s Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics. Last autumn he was the Rothschild visiting professor at the Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University. His scientific specialty is plasma astrophysics—the physics of the sun and the stars—and he has been instrumental in establishing the University of Chicago as one of the world’s leading centers in that field. He also led the collaboration of Argonne and University of Chicago scientists who created the Center for Astrophysical Thermonuclear Flashes and directed the center from its founding in 1997 to 2002. The center develops simulations of exploding stars with computer codes that can be adapted for application to other fields and is funded by the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration.
Argonne was the nation’s first national laboratory, chartered in 1946. An annual operating budget of $475 million supports the work of approximately 2,700 employees on the Argonne campus, located 25 miles southwest of downtown Chicago.
The University of Chicago has been Argonne’s manager and partner throughout its history. Argonne was formed in 1946 as an outgrowth of the Manhattan Project’s Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, which in 1942 produced the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
Today, Argonne performs research in basic science, including experimental and theoretical work in materials science, physics, chemistry, biology, high-energy physics, mathematics and computer science; energy resources; environmental management; transportation; and national security.
Argonnealso designs, builds, operates and manages many scientific and engineering research facilities and makes them available to outside researchers from industry, academia and other government laboratories. Six of these facilities are official U.S. Department of Energy National User Facilities or User Centers. The Department’s Office of Science is the steward of 10 national laboratories in the national laboratory system, including Argonne.
Caltech Physics Team Invents Device For Weighing Individual Molecules
Physicists at the California Institute of Technology have created the first nanodevices capable of weighing individual biological molecules. This technology may lead to new forms of molecular identification that are cheaper and faster than existing methods, as well as revolutionary new instruments for proteomics.
According to Michael Roukes, professor of physics, applied physics, and bioengineering at Caltech and the founding director of Caltech's Kavli Nanoscience Institute, the technology his group has announced this week shows the immense potential of nanotechnology for creating transformational new instrumentation for the medical and life sciences. The new devices are at the nanoscale, he explains, since their principal component is significantly less than a millionth of a meter in width.
The Caltech devices are "nanoelectromechanical resonators"--essentially tiny tuning forks about a micron in length and a hundred or so nanometers wide that have a very specific frequency at which they vibrate when excited. Just as a bronze bell rings at a certain frequency based on its size, shape, and composition, these tiny tuning forks ring at their own fundamental frequency of mechanical vibration, although at such a high pitch that the "notes" are nearly as high in frequency as microwaves.
The researchers set up electronic circuitry to continually excite and monitor the frequency of the vibrating bar. Intermittently, a shutter is opened to expose the nanodevice to an atomic or molecular beam, in this case a very fine "spray" of xenon atoms or nitrogen molecules. Because the nanodevice is cooled, the molecules condense on the bar and add their mass to it, thereby lowering its frequency. In other words, the mechanical vibrations of the now slightly-more-massive nanodevice become slightly lower in frequency--just as thicker, heavier strings on an instrument sound notes that are lower than lighter ones.
Because frequency can be measured so precisely in physics labs, the researchers are then able to evaluate extremely subtle changes in mass of the nanodevice, and therefore, the weight of the added atoms or molecules.
Roukes says that their current generation of devices is sensitive to added mass at the level of a few zeptograms, which is few billionths of a trillionth of a gram. In their experiments this represents about thirty xenon atoms-- and it is the typical mass of an individual protein molecule.
The new method might ultimately permit the creation of microchips, each possessing arrays of miniature mass spectrometers, which are devices for identifying molecules based on their weight. Today, high-throughput proteomics searches are often done at facilities possessing arrays of conventional mass spectrometers that fill an entire laboratory and can cost upwards of a million dollars each, Roukes adds. By contrast, future nanodevice-based systems should cost a small fraction of today's technology, and an entire massively-parallel nanodevice system will probably ultimately fit on a desktop.
Roukes says his group has technology in hand to push mass-sensing technology to even more sensitive levels, probably to the point that individual hydrogen atoms can be weighed. Such an intricately accurate method of determining atomic-scale masses would be quite useful in areas such as quantum optics, in which individual atoms are manipulated.
The next step for Roukes' team at Caltech is to engineer the interfaces so that individual biological molecules can be weighed. For this, the team will likely collaborate with various proteomics labs for side-by-side comparisons of already known information on the mass of biological molecules with results obtained with the new method.
The Caltech team behind the zepto result included Dr. Ya-Tang Yang, former graduate student in applied physics, now at Applied Materials; Dr. Carlo Callegari, former postdoctoral associate, now a professor at the University of Graz, Austria; Xiaoli Feng, current graduate student in electrical engineering; and Dr. Kamil Ekinci former postdoctoral associate, now a professor at Boston University.
DoD, Calit2 Fund $500,000 Investment in Advanced Chip Technology
The U.S. Department of Defense and the University of California San Diego division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) will jointly fund acquisition of a state-of-the-art system for depositing thin-film layers of materials, metals and oxides on tomorrow’s semiconductors. The system will initially supply optical devices to a DoD-funded, small-business research project on ‘optical tagging’ – using optics to identify and track friends or enemies on the battlefield.
Under a grant from the Pentagon’s Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP), the Army Research Office and Calit2 will split the $500,000 investment in a metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) system. MOCVD is a toxic but very effective method for depositing metal-organic ‘glue’ that binds together multiple layers of different materials to create advanced, compound microchips (so-called ‘heterostructure’ semiconductors).
The MOCVD system will be housed in the materials-and-devices wing of Calit2’s new headquarters on the UCSD campus in La Jolla, CA. Due for occupancy this summer, the new building will include 12,000 square feet of clean rooms for micro-to-nano fabrication, surrounded by facilities for materials growth and diagnosis.
The MOCVD reactor will initially be used on a collaborative program among researchers from UCSD and Rancho Bernardo, CA-based Surface Optics Corporation to study multiple quantum well (MQW) modulators for optical tagging. The technology will be used in target tracking systems. UCSD will become a subcontractor of Surface Optics, and will supply multi-quantum well (MQW) materials to an ongoing Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II research project led by Surface Optics chief scientist Zuhan Gu, who holds a Ph.D. from UCSD. “The project is funded by the Army through the STTR program, which aims to increase small-business research in federal R&D,” said Gu, a Visiting Research Scientist in UCSD’s Electrical and Computer Engineering department. “STTR is also meant to promote collaboration between small business and large research institutions, and we look forward to a long and productive relationship with researchers at UCSD and Calit2 on this and future projects.”
The MOCVD reactor will also provide materials for half a dozen ongoing research programs already supported at UCSD by DoD agencies. Those projects range from optoelectronic integrated circuits to nano-electronics, including advanced materials for devices such as quantum wells, quantum dots and quantum wires.
With its location in Calit2’s multidisciplinary facility, the MOCVD reactor will support research in engineering, chemistry and other departments, and will also be available for use by Calit2-affiliated faculty from UC Irvine (UCSD’s partner in the institute).
The MOCVD system has a reactor chamber designed for large-diameter wafer growth with the capability for device-quality epiwafers with thick MQW layers. The MOCVD tools are particularly well-suited for the critical first step in the growth of high-speed electronic, wireless and optoelectronic compound semiconductor materials employed in advanced wireless telecommunications and rapidly growing, high-brightness light-emitting diode (LED) lighting applications
Because of the toxicity of the MOCVD process, the reactor will be located in a lab equipped with toxic gas scrubbing facilities, safety monitoring systems, and gas cabinets and gas switching systems. “In the new reactor, we also plan to install in situ monitoring systems, such as windows for photoluminescence and pyrometric measurements,” said Yu. “As a result, we will be able to monitor the growth process over the entire wafer, and a fast switching and flow system will allow us to enhance the abruptness of the growth interfaces.”
Paul Yu, chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department in UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering is the principal investigator on the project. Other investigators include Yu’s fellow UCSD electrical and computer engineering professors Charles Tu, William S.C. Chang, and Deli Wang; Surface Optics’ Zuhan Gu; as well as faculty from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry who are associated with Calit2, including professors John Crowell and Andrew Kummel. The DURIP grant will also provide materials and devices training to graduate and undergraduate students using the new facility.
The Army Research Office grant is one of 212 awards to 108 academic institutions receiving almost $44 million under DURIP, which supports the purchase of equipment that augments current university capabilities or develops new university capabilities to perform cutting edge defense research. DURIP meets a critical need by enabling university researchers to purchase scientific equipment costing $50,000 or more to conduct DoD relevant research. The researchers generally have difficulty purchasing instruments costing that much under their research contracts and grants.
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N.Y. Agency Gives Cornell Researchers $300,000 to Develop Biodegradable Plastics
"Green" plastics developed in a Cornell laboratory soon could become commercial products with the aid of a $300,000 grant from the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR).
NYSTAR's mission is to encourage economic development in New York state by supporting high-tech academic research that can form the basis for new businesses. The new grant supports research by Geoffrey Coates, Cornell professor of chemistry and chemical biology, that will be exploited by Novomer LLC, a company Coates has co-founded. He has found ways to combine carbon dioxide from the air with natural materials, such as plant oils, or materials called epoxides to form biodegradable materials that could replace common petroleum-based plastics in applications ranging from packaging to biomedical devices.
What we commonly call plastics are, to a chemist, polymers -- long chains of complex molecules linked together to form a solid, moldable material. Most commonly used polymers, such as polystyrene or polypropylene, are made from molecules built around carbon atoms, and the most common raw material from which they are made is petroleum, a dwindling resource. In addition, most of them are difficult to break down chemically.
Some organic chemicals, when mixed together, will spontaneously polymerize -- the molecules link up on their own. Some epoxy glues work that way. But the natural materials Coates and his research group work with require help from a catalyst that encourages the chemical reaction but is not consumed by it. Through a combination of rational design and luck, Coates says, his group discovered a family of metal-based catalysts that polymerize carbon dioxide and epoxides into a clear, colorless, rigid plastic. Epoxides can be obtained either from petroleum products or from plant oils. Coates has, for example, made plastics from orange peel oil.
The new polymers are biodegradable, meaning they will eventually break down into the natural materials from which they were made, rather than sitting for decades in landfills.
Novomer LLC is a specialty materials company formed in July of 2004 by Coates, Scott Allen, a postdoctoral researcher in Coates' laboratory, and Anthony Eisenhut, president and CEO of KensaGroup, an Ithaca-based technology commercialization company.
Collaboration Reveals the Complex Origins of Pain
In an close collaboration between laboratory scientists and practicing doctors, a Princeton neuroscientist is helping to reveal brain mechanisms that cause chronic pain and related disorders such as chronic fatigue syndrome and depression.
Barry Jacobs, a professor of psychology, is working with a team of U.S. Navy dentists who, moving beyond the traditional boundaries of their field, have established a major research and treatment center for chronic head and neck pain at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
The research collaboration, which also includes scientists at Rutgers University, is showing how stress and traumatic events can lead to a variety of clinical disorders that include chronic pain as a major symptom. Jacobs, a well-known authority on the role of serotonin and other chemical signals in the brain, is identifying the chemical and biological processes that underlie this progression.
People who report such problems have often been dismissed by doctors as needing psychological counseling rather than medical treatment.
Jacobs is leading studies in which researchers subject mice and rats to stressful conditions in the laboratory and then examine the animals' brains for signs of long-term chemical and functional changes. These changes may render the animals unusually susceptible to pain or cause conditions that are similar to those seen in human disorders, such as chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia, a general aching of joints and muscles.
This fundamental brain research may ultimately lead to better methods for treating chronic pain, according to Jacobs' Navy collaborators.
Jacobs is working with Capt. Dale Ehrlich and Capt. Peter Bertrand, who co-founded the Orofacial Pain Center at the National Naval Medical Center. The pain program currently treats 500 to 600 new patients a year, many of whom have exhausted other medical options. Some of the group's treatment regimens are relatively simple. In most cases, patients are taught to alter their physical reactions to stress, such as clenching their teeth. The researchers believe that this behavior modification removes possible sources of pain and may reset the processing of stress hormones and other brain chemicals, ultimately reducing the patient's susceptibility to pain.
