University News
Graduate Training at UCR Earns US$2.9 Million
The National Science Foundation has approved funding of $2.9 million for an Integrative Graduate Education and Research Trainee (IGERT) program to be conducted by researchers at UC Riverside’s Center for Plant Cell Biology. This prestigious and highly competitive award marks the first time UC Riverside has had an IGERT program funded.
Under principal investigator Julia Bailey-Serres, professor of Genetics in the Botany and Plant Sciences Department, this five-year project proposes to train 23 Ph.D. students in cell biology, chemistry, computational sciences and engineering. The ultimate goal of the program is to develop responsible citizens and leaders dedicated to solving complex problems in biology through innovative and collaborative research.
The project, titled “IGERT in Chemical Genomics: Forging Complementation at the Interface of Chemistry, Engineering, Computational Sciences and Cell Biology,” brings faculty from different departments into collaboration.
UC Riverside students in the IGERT program will be trained in advanced chemical genomics, using small molecules to probe protein function in complex cellular systems. Researchers at Harvard University are using the chemical genomics approach on mammalian systems, but the Center for Plant Cell Biology is the only research group actively adapting the approach for plants.
The method allows researchers to overcome obstacles through the use of multiple sciences, including chemistry, computational science and engineering. According to project participants, multidisciplinary research is the future of biological science due to the complexity of cells and multicellular organisms.
The project’s educational mission is designed to instill in graduate students an acute awareness of the potential for their discoveries to address global food, health and environmental problems.
An outreach effort of the IGERT program will seek to stimulate interest in genomic science, especially among underrepresented students. As mentioned in the project summary, the project aspires to produce a “new generation of diverse leaders who can form the complementary research teams required for 21st-century research careers in industry and academia.”
The “ChemGen” program is expected to begin in September. In addition to Bailey-Serres, Co-principal investigators include Plant Cell Biology professor Natasha Raikhel, Chemistry professor Michael Pirrung, Computer Science professor Tao Jiang and Biochemical Engineering professor Jerome Schultz.
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“Top-Notch Epidemiologist” Appointed Chancellor's Fellow for UT System
Epidemiologist Joseph B. McCormick, M.D., dean of The University of Texas School of Public Health’s Brownsville regional campus, has been appointed as the first Chancellor’s Fellow in Public Health by University of Texas System Executive Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs Kenneth I. Shine, M.D.
For a one-year term, McCormick will continue to extend his contributions to the field by focusing on System-wide public health education, academic and community relations and multidisclinary research, said Shine.
McCormick also is considering a System-wide symposium on public health in early 2006.
McCormick—who also is the James H. Steele Professor of Epidemiology at the UT School of Public Health— has garnered widespread attention for his international work fighting dangerous viruses, including the Marburg virus in Angola. He served as a consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO) in viral hemorrhagic fevers, smallpox eradication and AIDS. In 1995, McCormick and his wife Susan Fisher-Hoch, M.D., Ph.D., professor of epidemiology in the UT School of Public Health at Brownsville, co-authored the best-selling book, Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC.
The Chancellor’s Fellow in Public Health is one of four new Chancellor’s Health Fellows positions recently authorized by the UT Board of Regents. Each fellow will receive a $25,000 academic enhancement fund, which can be used for research and education. Fellows are selected for their expertise and willingness to facilitate System-wide efforts in enhancing achievements in selected areas.
McCormick is a member of the Research Advisory Board at The University of Texas at Dallas.
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Urban Named UTMB Chairman of Internal Medicine
Dr. Randall J. Urban has been named chair of the Department of Internal Medicine of The University of Texas Medical Branch School of Medicine. Urban holds the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Distinguished Chair in Internal Medicine. He served as the interim chair of the department since June 2004. Prior to taking the helm of internal medicine, Urban was director of the Stark Diabetes Center and the Division of Endocrinology.
A native of Victoria, Texas, Urban received his medical degree from Texas A&M University in 1982 and completed his residency in internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., in 1985. He completed his fellowship in endocrinology at the University of Virginia Medical School in Charlottesville, Va.
A member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society, Urban was the top graduating medical student in his class. He holds two grants from the National Institutes of Health and is the primary investigator on several foundation grants. His areas of research include ovarian steroidogenesis, aging and hormonal effects on muscle function, as well as traumatic brain injury and pituitary dysfunction.
Urban is a strong advocate in the development and implementation of community outreach programs for diabetes, promoting the diagnosis and management of diabetes through educational initiatives supported by the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Diabetes Center.
A member of multiple scientific societies, Urban is an author in the field of endocrinology with more than 140 peer-reviewed publications and abstracts. He is a reviewer for the NIH and serves as a manuscript reviewer for several scientific journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Cornell Presidential Search Committee Formed
The formation of the Presidential Search Committee to nominate a successor to former Cornell University President Jeffrey S. Lehman was announced July 5 by Peter C. Meinig, chair of the Cornell Board of Trustees, and Diana M. Daniels, vice chair of the board. Lehman stepped aside from the presidency June 30.
Daniels will chair the search committee. The committee membership will include representatives from the several Cornell constituencies, including trustees, faculty, undergraduate students, graduate students, employees, the Weill Cornell Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences, senior administration and alumni.
Trustee members of the committee are Daniels, chair; Ezra Cornell; C. Morton Bishop III; Robert T. Blakely III; Elizabeth D. Earle, faculty-elected trustee; Michael V. Esposito, employee-elected trustee; Samuel C. Fleming; Blanche S. Goldenberg; Paul A. Gould; Robert S. Harrison; Myra Maloney Hart; Joshua D. Katcher, student-elected trustee; Robert J. Katz; Peter C. Meinig; Doug Mitarotonda, student-elected trustee; Elizabeth D. Moore; Edwin H. Morgens; and Jan Rock Zubrow.
Nontrustee members are: Antonio M. Gotto Jr., M.D., dean of the Weill Medical College and provost for medical affairs; Susan H. Murphy, vice president for student and academic services; Juris Hartmanis, faculty member; and Laura S. Brown, faculty member.
In addition to the members of the committee, Daniels announced the appointment of three advisers to the committee. They are Harold Tanner, board chair emeritus; Sanford I. Weill, trustee emeritus and chair of the Weill Cornell Medical College Board of Overseers, and Stephen H. Weiss, board chair emeritus.
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University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management Names New Dean
University of Minnesota Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost E. Thomas Sullivan named Alison Davis-Blake as the new dean of the Carlson School of Management, effective July 2006. Davis-Blake will become the Carlson School’s 11th dean since its founding in 1919. She is the school’s first female dean and will be the highest-ranking female dean at a U.S. business school. Davis-Blake currently serves as the senior associate dean for Academic Affairs, at the University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business, where she oversees the school’s day-to-day academic and administrative operations and is responsible for implementing key aspects of the school’s strategic plan. She also holds the Eddy C. Scurlock Centennial Professor of Management.
Davis-Blake will lead a school that is internationally ranked and home to Carlson School Enterprises, which is the broadest portfolio of student-led businesses in the nation. Going forward the school plans to grow the highly competitive undergraduate program to serve more students, and pending legislative approval will break ground for a new facility in 2006.
Davis-Blake has been with the McCombs School of Business since 1990. As senior associate dean, her portfolio includes experience in faculty recruitment, retention, and research; leading and developing graduate and undergraduate programs, career services, and information technology; and managing the school’s operating and instructional budgets. Prior to serving as senior associate dean, she was chair of the department of management and also co-founded and co-directed an executive master’s degree program in human resource development leadership. As a professor of management, her research focused on outsourcing, use of temporary and contract workers, employee leasing, and organizational salary and promotion systems. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Sloan Foundation.
Davis-Blake began her academic career in 1986 as an assistant professor of industrial administration at Carnegie Mellon University’s Graduate School of Industrial Administration. Previously, she worked as an auditor for Touche Ross and Co. in New York. Davis-Blake earned a doctorate in organizational behavior from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and a Masters of Organizational Behavior and a bachelor of science in economics, summa cum laude with highest honors, from Brigham Young University.
Davis-Blake will replace interim co-deans Michael Houston and Jim Campbell, who are serving in the role after the resignation of former Carlson School dean Larry Benveniste. Houston and Campbell will continue serving as interim co-deans until July 1, 2006 when she will begin her new position. Davis-Blake’s appointment will go before the Board of Regents for final approval on September 9. Davis-Blake is a native of Falcon Heights, Minn. and a graduate of Alexander Ramsey High School in Roseville, Minn.
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Quimby Selected Associate Dean
Peter Quimby, dean of a residential college and lecturer in political science at Yale University, has been named associate dean of the college at Princeton.
He will succeed Hank Dobin, associate dean since 1996, who has been appointed dean of the college at Washington and Lee University. Quimby will take up his new responsibilities on Aug. 1, 2005.
Quimby will work with faculty members, academic departments and certificate programs on all matters concerning the undergraduate curriculum. He will serve as secretary of the Faculty Committee on the Course of Study and, in that capacity, review proposals for new courses and significant curricular changes. He also will coordinate the Freshman Seminar Program, serve as the academic adviser to independent concentrators, and direct or oversee a number of other programs and initiatives.
Quimby has been dean of Yale's Davenport College since 2001. In addition to overseeing academic affairs and student life for the 470-student college, he has taken on a range of university-wide administrative assignments at Yale. These include coordinating the new Freshman Seminar Program and chairing a subcommittee of a working group dedicated to implementing other initiatives related to Yale's new curriculum. One recommendation called for the restructuring of the Yale College dean's office, with a new Office of Freshman Affairs to attend to the special curricular and advising needs of first-year students.
Quimby also has served as director of undergraduate studies for the special divisional major (Yale's equivalent of independent concentration), as secretary of the Yale College Committee on Teaching and Learning and as a member of the Faculty Committee on Athletics.
From 1998 to 2001, Quimby was an administrator and teacher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He served as associate director and then assistant dean of the Pathways to Excellence Project, a set of campus-wide initiatives designed to improve the quality of undergraduate education at the university.
A 1989 magna cum laude graduate of Bowdoin College with a B.A. in government and Russian, Quimby earned an M.A. (1992) and a Ph.D. (1999) in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His teaching, at Wisconsin and Yale, has focused on Russian and comparative politics. His principal scholarly interest is in state-building, religion and politics in post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine.
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Pioneer in Biotech Research and Drug Development Joins UCSF
James Wells, PhD, cofounder of the South San Francisco-based pharmaceutical company Sunesis and a pioneer in developing new drug discovery and protein engineering technologies, has been appointed professor in both the schools of pharmacy and medicine at UCSF and will also direct a new center to boost drug discovery at the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research, headquartered at UCSF's Mission Bay campus.
Wells, elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1999, will serve as professor of pharmaceutical chemistry and as professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology. He will also hold the first Harry Wm. and Diana V. Hind Distinguished Professorship in Pharmaceutical Sciences at UCSF.
Wells has been chief scientific officer and president of Sunesis and was co-inventor there of a novel drug-discovery process called Tethering to efficiently screen thousands of molecules in search of the most potent compounds to block specific protein action. The technique has been adopted by several large pharmaceutical companies through collaborations with Sunesis.
His UCSF appointment is expected to further strengthen the university's innovative Program in Chemistry and Chemical Biology, which develops and exploits chemical approaches to study, change and inhibit key biological processes in the cell, such as hormone and enzyme actions and signaling between molecules. These activities are considered prime targets for a new generation of drugs to treat maladies with greater precision and fewer side effects.
Wells, who has been an adjunct professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at UCSF while at Sunesis, intends to focus his UCSF research on the basic science and technology of discovering small molecules as drug candidates, particularly for novel cancer therapeutics.
Wells intends to remain closely affiliated with Sunesis.
The new Hind Distinguished Professorship in Pharmaceutical Sciences was established with a gift to the UCSF School of Pharmacy from Harry and Diana Hind. A School of Pharmacy alumnus, Harry Hind is the inventor of both the wetting solution that helped bring contact lenses into widespread use, and the Lidoderm patch, prescribed to treat nerve-injury pain from shingles.
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Department of Energy Grants Fund Work on New Hydrogen Fuel Technologies at UCSC
Nanotechnology may hold the key to developing a viable hydrogen economy, according to Jin Zhang, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Zhang will receive US$535,000 in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for his part in two research projects aimed at developing new technologies for the production and storage of hydrogen fuel using nanostructured materials.
Producing hydrogen from water using solar energy is the focus of one of the projects. Zhang is leading that effort and is also a coinvestigator on a second project to develop a method for highly efficient hydrogen storage. Both of the three-year projects rely on a novel approach to create nanostructured materials with special properties. Nanostructure refers to dimensions on the scale of billionths of a meter.
The grants are among 70 hydrogen research projects funded through a $64 million DOE initiative aimed at making vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells available, practical, and affordable for American consumers by 2020. Zhang's collaborators on the hydrogen production project are Yiping Zhao of the University of Georgia at Athens and Wei Chen of Nomadics Inc. The hydrogen storage project is headed by Zhao and also involves Matthew McCluskey of Washington State University.
Hydrogen offers an attractive alternative to fossil fuels because it is highly efficient and clean. But major technological hurdles must be overcome to make the use of hydrogen fuel practical.
The first hurdle is how to produce the hydrogen. Water molecules can be split to form pure hydrogen and oxygen using electricity (a process called electrolysis). But the environmental advantages of hydrogen would be lost if the electricity used to generate it came from burning fossil fuels. Using solar energy to split water and generate hydrogen is not a new concept, but Zhang says his team's approach could lead to a device efficient enough for practical use.
The device will integrate two kinds of solar cells--a photovoltaic cell to produce electricity and a photoelectrochemical cell to produce hydrogen from the electrolysis of water. Both will use specially designed materials based on arrays of nanowires with uniform orientation. The main focus of the project will be on developing these nanostructured materials to optimize the efficiency of both the photovoltaic cell and the photoelectrochemical cell.
The researchers will use a technique called glancing angle deposition (GLAD) to fabricate the nanowire arrays. Zhao is an expert on the use of this technique for making nanowires and nanorods. Zhang's lab will focus on characterizing the structure and properties of the materials Zhao makes and evaluating their suitability for achieving the highest possible efficiencies for the photovoltaic cell and the photoelectrochemical cell.
The hydrogen storage project will also involve using the GLAD technique to fabricate nanostructured materials. One of the problems with hydrogen as a fuel is that it is a bulky gas that is not easily transported and stored. A promising solution is to store it in a solid form as a metal hydride compound. Metal hydride nanostructures could greatly improve the efficiency of this type of storage, Zhang said.
The researchers plan to find the optimum conditions for fabricating metal hydride nanostructures to achieve highly efficient hydrogen storage.
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Researchers Devise Improved Controls For Advanced Tokamak Fusion Reactor
Researchers at UCSD and San Diego-based General Atomics have reported an improved control method for a type of nuclear fusion technology that confines a cloud of ionized hydrogen in a doughnut-shaped machine called a tokamak. Unlike fission reactors, which generate energy by splitting atoms of uranium or plutonium, tokamak fusion devices create energy with almost no radioactive byproducts by combining two heavy atoms of hydrogen into helium. Researchers at UCSD, General Atomics, and dozens of university and government laboratories around the world are collaborating on a variety of fronts to improve the efficiency of the current generation of tokamaks, which use magnetic fields to confine the ionized hydrogen fuel, or plasma, in a circular cloud called a torus.
In a paper published in the July issue of Automatica , a group that includes UCSD professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering Miroslav Krstic and his former graduate student Eugenio Schuster, now an engineering professor at Lehigh University, described an improved control technique developed with General Atomics scientists Michael L. Walker and David A. Humphreys. The new mathematical approach was designed to be incorporated into existing General Atomics software to more effectively fine tune electrical currents flowing through tokamak control circuits. These currents produce magnetic fields that dampen the vertical instabilities and unwanted oscillations of the torus.
Nuclear fusion occurs in tokamaks when a mixture of deuterium, and tritium -- isotopes of hydrogen with two and three times the mass, respectively, of ordinary hydrogen atoms -- fuse into helium. The common goal of an international team that includes the People's Republic of China, the European Union, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, and the United States is to build by 2015 the next generation of fusion reactor based on the experience gained with tokamaks. The group’s planned $5 billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which is slated for construction in France, will heat a diffuse cloud of ionized hydrogen to roughly 100 million degrees Celsius, fusing isotopes of hydrogen into helium in a process that will generate about 10 times more energy than the device will consume.
Several years ago tokamaks demonstrated the ability to produce more power than they consume, an important milestone, but the first commercial fusion reactors are estimated to be 30 years away.
Advanced tokamaks heat nuclei of hydrogen to temperatures hotter than those at the center of the sun. “This is one reason plasma is so unstable in these machines,” said Walker, a scientist with General Atomics and co-author of the study. “However, we’re better able to control the instabilities, which is why this study and others like it are signs of the steady progress that the fusion community has made in the past several years.”
One limitation of tokamak devices relates to the upper limit of current that can pass through their control circuits. These circuits behave like garden hoses capable of carrying only a limited flow of water, and once they reach their maximum carrying capacity they are said to be saturated. If more electrical current is needed to generate a stronger magnetic push on wayward plasma, vertical-control software may call for more current than the control circuits can possibly deliver, a process known in the control field as “winding up.” “In this case, the controllers are telling the actuators to work harder and harder, but they’re already maxed out,” said Krstic. “As a consequence, the vertical position of the plasma torus can potentially hit the interior wall of the tokamak and cause structural damage.”
The technique invented by Krstic and Schuster includes “anti-windup” features, including one dubbed “watch dog” and another called “rate limiter” that are designed, respectively, to monitor coil voltage demands and prevent the controller from asking for a response that can’t possibly be delivered.
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Vanderbilt Group to Tackle Extreme Conditions in Space
Unlike the spectacular movie version, real-life sun storms can’t turn ordinary astronauts into the Fantastic Four. But they can and occasionally do incapacitate expensive and vitally important space systems, like satellites and spacecraft.
Sun storms aren’t the only thing space-faring equipment has to cope with. When you throw in the extreme temperatures in space on top of the cosmic rays and coronal mass ejections, it gets pretty challenging up there.
Researchers with the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering are part of a team of engineers who will tackle these problems through a new NASA program to extend the performing range of computer systems despite extreme conditions of temperature and radiation.
Vanderbilt will receive a US$782,850 subcontract from NASA to support the evaluation and modeling of the combined effects of radiation and temperature on microelectronic devices including computer chips. Researchers based in the Vanderbilt Institute for Space and Defense Electronics (ISDE) will join a team headed by BAE Systems in Manassas, Va., to develop new methods to inexpensively protect data-gathering equipment operating in space. The principal investigator is Lloyd W. Massengill, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of engineering for ISDE
The team will develop new devices that can withstand temperatures as low as minus 230 C.
Senior Research Engineer Michael Alles is co-principal investigator for the ISDE group. Vanderbilt professors Ron Schrimpf, Dan Fleetwood, Bob Weller, and Robert Reed are also participating in the research effort.
ISDE is internationally known for its research on the effects of radiation on semiconductor materials, devices and circuits.
