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Newsletter from the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development- U. T. Dallas

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HHMI Names 20 New Million-Dollar Professors—Top Research Scientists Tapped for Their Teaching Talent

Teaching often takes a back seat to research at leading American universities. Determined to change that fact, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) combed the country for leading research scientists who, through their teaching and mentoring, are striving to ignite the scientific spark in a new generation of students. Now 20 of the best will receive $1 million each from HHMI to put their innovative ideas into action as HHMI professors at 18 research universities across the country.

The Institute does not tell the HHMI professors what to do or how to approach science education. Rather, HHMI provides them with the resources to turn their own considerable creativity loose in their undergraduate classrooms. Some will design programs to attract more women and minorities to science. Others will turn large introductory science courses or classes for non-science majors into engaging, hands-on learning experiences that challenge students to think like working scientists.

The Institute awarded US$20 million to the first group of HHMI professors in 2002 to bring the excitement of scientific discovery to the undergraduate classroom.

The experiment worked so well that neurobiologist and HHMI professor Darcy Kelley convinced Columbia University to require every entering freshman to take a course on hot topics in science. Through Utpal Bannerjee's HHMI program at the University of California, Los Angeles, 138 undergraduates were co-authors of a peer-reviewed article in a top scientific journal. At the University of Pittsburgh, HHMI professor Graham Hatfull's undergraduates mentored curious high school students as they unearthed and analyzed more than 30 never-before-seen bacteriophages from yards and barnyards. And Isiah Warner, an award-winning chemist and HHMI professor at Louisiana State University, developed a "mentoring ladder," a hierarchical model for integrating research, education, and peer mentoring, with a special emphasis on underrepresented minority students.

The Institute will give smaller renewal grants to eight of the original 20 professors to help them find ways to sustain the parts of their programs that worked best and to disseminate them to the broader community of teachers.

Last year, HHMI invited 100 research universities with outstanding track records in sending graduates to medical or graduate school to nominate up to two faculty members to compete for the HHMI professorships. A panel of distinguished research scientists and educators, including some HHMI professors selected in the last competition, reviewed 150 applications. They evaluated the potential impact of the proposals on undergraduate science education, as well as the quality of the applicants' research and educational accomplishments, and the potential for the proposed programs to serve as models elsewhere.

The new HHMI professors are accomplished researchers from diverse fields, including genetics, biochemistry, plant pathology, bioengineering, neuroscience, biophysics, and computational biology. Two are members of the National Academy of Sciences. Two have won Presidential Early Career Awards.

Some of the professors' plans include:

Winston Anderson, a professor of biology at historically African-American Howard University in Washington, D.C., wants to give his undergraduates "a competitive edge" for entering biomedical science careers. He plans intensive mentoring and a summer exchange program that will take students to African countries such as Ghana, Ethiopia, Mali, or Nigeria to study tropical diseases and ethnopharmacology—the use of indigenous plants for medicinal purposes.

Susan Wessler, a Regents professor of plant biology at the University of Georgia, intends to respond to the proponents of "intelligent design" by guiding her undergraduates through bioinformatic and genetic analyses of transposable elements in plant genomes, so they can witness evolution in action. Transposable elements, the focus of Wessler's research, are pieces of DNA that make copies of themselves that are inserted throughout the genomes of plants and animals, at times promoting evolutionary change.

Scott Strobel, a Yale University biophysicist and biochemist, will take undergraduates "bio-prospecting" for promising natural products in the world's rain forests. The students will then purify and analyze the compounds they collected and test them for potentially beneficial activity.

The new HHMI professors are:

The following 2002 HHMI professors received renewal awards:

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Emory Creates Research Partnership With Peking University Health Sciences Center

Professor Qi-de Han, dean of Peking University Health Sciences Center in Beijing, China, visited Emory University's Woodruff Health Sciences Center this week to discuss research and educational partnerships between the two institutions. Officials from Emory and Peking University signed a memorandum of understanding for scientific collaboration during a visit to China last October by an Emory delegation including President James Wagner, Provost Earl Lewis, Executive Vice President for Health Affairs Michael Johns, Vice President for Academic Health Affairs Jeffrey Koplan and several Emory scientists.

During Professor Han's visit, Michael M.E. Johns, MD, Emory executive vice president for health affairs and CEO of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center, presented him Emory's Woodruff Medal for his scientific career of distinction.

Professor Han's long relationship with Emory and the Woodruff Health Sciences Center began in 1985 when, as a faculty member at Peking University, he was invited by Emory President James Laney to be a postdoctoral fellow for two years in the Department of Pharmacology in Emory University School of Medicine. Then for seven years, beginning in 1989, he returned to the pharmacology department for three months each year to conduct joint study and research in the laboratory of Emory pharmacologist Kenneth P. Minneman.

Plans are underway for joint research projects between the two universities related to genetics and cancer. Peking University Professor Zhu Li has collaborated with investigators at Emory and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for many years on epidemiological research related to birth defects. Dr. Li is the Chinese leader of the international team that conducted the definitive studies demonstrating that folate supplementation during pregnancy greatly reduces the incidence of neural tube defects ("spina bifida"). Dr. Li has established a network of research field stations throughout China.

Joseph Cubells, PhD, and Michael Zwick, PhD, faculty members in the Department of Human Genetics in Emory University School of Medicine, are planning to work with Dr. Li and his colleagues to collect large numbers of DNA samples in China for studies of genetic differences in susceptibility to infectious diseases, birth defects and mental illness. Field trials in China, scheduled to begin soon, will establish the technical aspects of successful DNA collection. "We are very excited at the prospect of collaborating with our Chinese colleagues on a wide variety of genetic studies that will ultimately benefit both of our great nations," said Dr. Cubells.

Haian Fu, PhD, professor of pharmacology and oncology in Emory School of Medicine, is working with his Chinese colleagues to develop research collaborations in cancer and drug discovery and to identify potential exchange scholars who could train in Emory laboratories in cancer biology and pharmacology. Clinical interactions between Emory's Winship Cancer Institute and the Peking University Health Sciences Center Cancer Hospital could eventually include joint clinical trials for new drug development.

In addition, the Emory University program in Population Biology, Ecology and Evolution has recruited a graduate student from Peking University who will receive a prestigious Emory Woodruff Fellowship.

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American Diabetes Association Contributes $300,000 to Diabetes/Obesity Research

The American Diabetes Association recently awarded US$300,000 to the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston to support diabetes research that explores the relationship between the disease and obesity.

Dr. Mandeep Bajaj, a UTMB associate professor of endocrinology and director of UTMB's Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Diabetes Center, is the recipient of the ADA clinical research award. Bajaj will use the ADA funding to investigate adiponectin — a protein produced by fat cells that improves insulin action in muscles — and how its production is diminished in obese people and those with type 2 diabetes. This variation of diabetes is an incurable but treatable condition that prevents the body from properly using insulin, the hormone needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy.

The ADA reports that almost 21 million people in the United States, or 7 percent of the population, have diabetes. According to the Texas Diabetes Council, an estimated 1.3 million adults in the state have been diagnosed with the disease. It is the sixth-leading cause of death in Texas, contributing to more than 17,000 deaths in 2002. While its cause is still unknown, researchers have found that genetics and environmental factors such as sedentary lifestyles play significant roles.

Bajaj's study, which will be among the first to examine the mechanisms of adiponectin action in humans, will seek to understand how adiponectin receptors in skeletal muscle actually function. The receptors play crucial roles in controlling the insulin-sensitizing effects of adiponectin on skeletal muscles and have not been thoroughly studied in people with diabetes. Bajaj will also investigate the effects of exercise and certain medications on adiponectin action, which may lead to new diabetes treatments.

The country's leading nonprofit health organization dedicated to diabetes advocacy, research and information, the ADA gave $40 million to diabetes research last year. UTMB researchers have received approximately $956,000 from the ADA since their first grant from the association in 1992.

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MIT’s Jacks Earns Top Cancer Award

Tyler Jacks, director of MIT's Center for Cancer Research, has been named the 2005 Simon M. Shubitz Lecturer and Award recipient.

The University of Chicago Cancer Research Center presents the Shubitz Award each year to a scientist who has made significant contributions to the field of cancer research. On Monday, April 10, Jacks will deliver the annual Shubitz Lecture at the University of Chicago.

Jacks' research focuses on the genetic events that contribute to the development of cancer. His laboratory has constructed mouse models for lung cancer, astrocytoma, endometroid ovarian cancer, retinoblastoma and tumors of the peripheral nervous system.

In 2005, Jacks shared the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research awarded by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. That award honored him for advancing the understanding of the pathogenesis of cancer.

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Oxford Appoints New Director of Development

Sue Cunningham, Development Director at Christ Church, Oxford, has been appointed as Director of Development for the University of Oxford.

Cunningham has more than eight years of fundraising experience in the higher education sector, five of which she has spent at her current post at Christ Church, where she oversaw a major Capital Campaign to raise £30 million (US$52 million). Cunningham was educated at Middlesex University, London, and went on to work in theater for six years. She started her career in development at Wales' national photographic gallery, Ffotogallery Cardiff, and moved to the National Museums and Galleries of Wales, where she set up and ran their first Development Office. In 1998 she became Director of External Relations at the University of St Andrews, a position which involved managing development, alumni relations, media relations and PR, as well as publications and events functions.

A member of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), she regularly gives presentations at the annual CASE conferences, and recently chaired the CASE Spring Institute in Durham for recent recruits to the development profession. She was appointed Chair of Oxford Development Forum in 2003 and chaired the Oxford Heads of Development Group in 2004 and 2005.

Cunningham will take up her new position on May 1, 2006.

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Levy Appointed New Department of Computer Science & Engineering Chair

Henry M. Levy, a longtime University of Washington professor and expert in operating systems and computer architecture, will be the next chair of the university's Department of Computer Science & Engineering.

Levy will replace David Notkin, who has held the position for the past five years. Levy's first official day as chair is Saturday, April 1.

Levy said he is honored to be following in the footsteps of "an incredible set of department leaders."

Mani Soma, acting dean of the College of Engineering, called Levy a good choice to build on what is already an excellent program -- the department has been consistently ranked among nation's top 10 for more than a decade.

Notkin said he has known Levy since 1984, when Notkin joined the department. During that time, Levy has been an integral part of department culture.

After earning a bachelor's degree in math and computer science at Carnegie Mellon University in 1974, Levy began his career at Digital Equipment Corp. There, he was a member of the company's original design and implementation team for the VMS operating system and a systems architect for VAXclusters, one of the first clustered computer system products.

Levy earned a master's degree in computer science from the UW in 1981 and joined the university in 1983, where he led several pioneering projects that helped lay the groundwork for modern object-oriented distributed systems and languages.

In the early 1990s, he helped develop new techniques for high-performance thread support, synchronization and communication that influenced a number of commercial operating systems. In the mid-1990s, Levy, along with UW professor Susan Eggers and their students, invented simultaneous multithreading, which allows modern processors to execute multiple instructions from multiple programs in a single computing cycle.

This technology is used in several microprocessors, including the Intel Pentium-4 and the IBM Power-5.

Levy is a fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery and of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and recipient of a Fulbright Research Scholar Award.

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Professors Launch Major Investigation of California School Governance, Finance

To help lay the groundwork for reforming California's faltering school system, more than 30 researchers nationwide have launched the largest independent investigation ever of how the state governs and finances education.

Stanford Associate Professor of Education Susanna Loeb, an economist, is leading the US$2.6 million effort, titled, "Getting Down to Facts: A Research Project to Inform Solutions to California's Education Problems."

The studies aim to identify what reforms are needed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the school system and to assess how much it should cost to provide every child in California with a good education. Statewide, enormous disparities exist in educational quality. And compared with the past, California has fallen far behind. From its position as a national leader in education three decades ago, the state now ranks 48th in student basic reading and math skills, Loeb said.

The project, which was requested by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Committee on Education Excellence, Democratic leaders in the state Senate and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, aims to provide policy-makers with clear information that is needed to assess proposed reforms. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation and the Stuart Foundation are funding the nine-month effort, which includes more than 20 studies.

Although Kirst, who was president of the state board of education in 1970s, praised the quality of the project, he was less sanguine about whether it would lead to real change.

In addition to Loeb and Kirst, Stanford participants include Anthony Bryk, the Spencer Foundation Professor of Organizational Studies in Education and Business; Linda Darling-Hammond, the Charles E. Ducommun Professor; William Koski, the Eric and Nancy Wright Professor of Clinical Education at the Law School; and Eric Hanushek, the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

According to Loeb, who designed the study, the project asks three broad questions:

  1. What do California school finance and governance systems look like today?
  2. How can we use the resources we have more effectively to improve student outcomes?
  3. To what extent are additional resources needed so that California students can meet the goals we have for them?

For the first question, Loeb said, researchers will investigate the following:

For the second question, Loeb said, researchers will look at possible inefficiencies within the system by asking the following questions:

The third question aims to pinpoint the resource needs for different academic goals by asking the following questions:

Finally, Loeb said, three additional studies will help frame the research by asking the following questions:

In addition to Stanford, researchers conducting the study come from other universities including California State University-San Diego, Syracuse University, Tufts University, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, Quinnipiac University, the University of California-Davis, UC-Berkeley and UC-Santa Barbara. Others experts come from the American Institutes for Research, the Public Policy Institute of California, School Services of California, the RAND Corporation, EdSource, a clearinghouse for independent information on state public education policy issues, and Springboard Schools, a nonprofit network of educators committed to raising student achievement.

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Device Only Atoms Across May Allow Infinitesimal But Powerful Computers

Researchers from the University of South Florida, the University of Chicago and the Russian Academy of Sciences ( Moscow) have recently developed the principles of operation and completed an experimental testing of a single molecule for use as a diode. A paper explaining their research has just been accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters by the American Physical Society.

"Single molecule diodes are the fundamental building blocks of an emerging technology called 'nanoelectronics,' a field that holds promise for application in all kinds of electronic devices, from cell phones to sensors," said Ivan Oleynik, a physics professor at USF and coauthor of the paper."Molecular diodes could be built a thousand times smaller than diodes in use now."

Computer industry execs might start breathing easier because their biggest fear - that smaller and faster devices will eventually come to an end because silicon microchips will get so small that eventually they will contain too few silicon atoms to work - might be lessened as advancements in molecular electronics come to the rescue.

"Molecular electronics is enabling an area of nanoscience and technology that holds promise for the next generation of electronic devices, said Oleynik."Single molecular electronic devices rely on organic molecules with electronic responses tailored through synthetic organic chemistry."

Functioning at under several nanometers (a nanometer is a billionth of a meter), the molecular diode studied by the team of researchers acted as a rectifier (diode) because of the chemical asymmetry in different parts of an organic molecule comprised of both thiophene and thiazole. As a major component of electric circuitry, a diode is responsible for conducting electrical current by working something like a light switch, but allows current to flow only forward. The first diodes were large vacuum tubes, and most modern diodes are based on solid-state semiconductors.

"Molecular nanoelectronics is an exciting area of science not only because of its potential but because it is highly interdisciplinary, combining physics, chemistry, materials science, computational science and engineering," explained Oleynik.

The team's most recent finding and the basis for their publication was an explanation of how the intrinsic chemical asymmetry of"designer" molecules results in rectification of electrical current. The left and right parts of the organic molecule interact differently with electrons that"tunnel" through the molecule. Importantly, the electronic interactions with the left and right parts of the molecule respond differently to the change of the polarity of applied voltage.

The potentially bright future of molecular electronic technology is calculated on an ability to control molecular structure. Much of the work is yet empirical and involves"chemical intuition" as a driving force in molecular design as well as the applications of molecular devices.

Success in pioneering the field of molecular electronics would mean new life could be breathed into Moore's Law, the prediction made by Intel's Gordon Moore in 1965 that the density of transistors on a chip would double very 18-24 months. While Moore's observation has been true, everyone in the industry knows that there has always been a limit to the number of atoms that would render a device smaller, cheaper, faster but still operable. New technology that would expand the limits of microelectronics has been a continuing quest.

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