University News
U.S. National Science Foundation Celebrates Opening of Beijing Office
Representatives of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of State, the Chinese government and Chinese scientific societies today celebrated the opening of NSF"s research operations office in Beijing.
The National Science Foundation is a U.S. government agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, with an annual budget of US$5.58 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states and several countries through grants to nearly 1,700 U.S. universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 40,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes nearly 10,000 new funding awards. The NSF also awards over $400 million in professional and service contracts yearly.
Bement was joined by Clark Randt, U.S. Ambassador to China; Chen Yiyu, president of the Chinese National Natural Sciences Foundation; Bai Chunli, executive vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; and William Chang, director of the new office.
The ceremony was held at the NSF Beijing Office, which occupies a suite in the Silver Tower high rise located in Beijing's Chaoyang district. The office is part of the U.S. Embassy in China and officially began operations in Feb. 2006.
The Beijing office is managed out of NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE), which serves as a focal point for international science and engineering activities both inside and outside the foundation. Specifically, OISE works to build and strengthen effective institutional partnerships throughout the global science and engineering research and education community, and supports international collaborations in NSF's priority research areas to expand and enhance leading-edge international research and education opportunities for U.S. scientists and engineers, especially early in their careers.
According to the NSF report, Science and Engineering Indicators 2006, China ranked fourth in the world in the year 2000 in research and development, with $48.9 billion in expenditures. Two years later, the country ranked third, behind the United States and Japan, spending an estimated $72.0 billion on R&D.
The NSF Beijing Office is NSF's third foreign office. NSF also maintains research offices in Paris and Tokyo.
The May 24th opening ceremony will be followed by a U.S.-China science and technology conference that will include 150 distinguished scientists and government officials.
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SG$1.3 Million Worth of Scholarships Offered to Students of Cornell-Nanyang Institute of Hospitality Management
The Cornell-Nanyang Institute of Hospitality Management (CNI) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) will be welcoming its first batch of students in May this year to attend the Master of Management in Hospitality (MMH) program. Of the 19 students in this inaugural batch, nine students will be presented with scholarships totaling SG$776,000 (US$490,800), offered by international industry partners including the Singapore Tourism Board, CapitaLand, InterContinental Hotels Group and YTL Hotels. Four other candidates are being sponsored by their organizations to attend the program. Companies offering sponsorships to their employees include Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Ngee Ann Polytechnic and the Singapore Tourism Board.
The scholarships range from SG$70,000 (US$44,270) to SG$125,000 (US$79,060) each, and cover tuition fees, travel and living expenses at NTU in Singapore and Cornell in Ithaca, New York, US. Outstanding students in this pioneer intake come from around the world and from diverse industry backgrounds.
CNI is an alliance between Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and NTU's Nanyang Business School. Aimed at grooming middle and senior management talent for the booming hospitality industry in Singapore and the region, CNI offers a prestigious first-of-its-kind joint graduate degree program in hospitality management in Singapore.
The scholarships will be presented at the second Joint Advisory Board meeting of CNI. The board members, comprising industry stalwarts and leading academic administrators, will gather to discuss the further development and plans for the institute. Newly appointed to the CNI Board are Mr Marvin Cheung, former Senior Partner for KPMG Hong Kong; Mr Kurt Ritter, President and CEO of Rezidor Hospitality; Mr Chiaki Tanuma, President of Green House Group in Japan; and Mr Yang Wei Min, Vice Chairman and CEO of Shanghai Jinjiang International Hotels Development Company Ltd. They join the 14-member board, chaired by Mr Philip Yeo, Chairman of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).
The Cornell-Nanyang Institute of Hospitality Management will offer Asia's first graduate hospitality management program beginning May 2006. Up to 25 students per class will spend equal periods of time at NTU's campus and at Cornell's campus in Ithaca, New York. The collaboration unites Cornell's School of Hotel Administrationmwith NTU's Nanyang Business School, one of the leading business schools in Asia, in what is the first joint degree program for both institutions.
The program is aimed at cultivating Asia-centric leadership and bringing world-class standards to the fast-growing Asian hospitality industry. The program is accredited by the International Association for Management Education (formerly the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business) and by EQUIS, the accreditation body of the European Foundation for Management Development. The Cornell-NTU collaboration is supported by the Singapore Tourism Board and the Economic Development Board, with the International Hotel Management School Pte Ltd playing a lead industry role.
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Tennessee Names UC Berkeley Dean as New Provost
The University of Tennessee has announced that it has appointed UC Berkeley's Robert Holub as its provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs.
Holub, dean of UC Berkeley's undergraduate division for the College of Letters & Science and a faculty member since 1979, will assume the Tennessee post in August.
Holub currently oversees curriculum and instruction for 18,000 undergraduates. At the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, he will oversee all academic operations, including eight colleges, all graduate programs, enrollment services and libraries.
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University of Michigan Medical School Researcher Named Atkins Professor
A University of Michigan Medical School researcher who studies the science of obesity and metabolism has received an honor named for another physician who achieved international prominence in that same field.
Charles Burant , M.D., Ph.D., has been made the U-M's first Dr. Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Professor of Metabolism. The professorship is named for the doctor whose theories promoted disease prevention and health management through a low-carbohydrate lifestyle that became synonymous with his name.
The honor is made possible by a $2 million pledged grant from the Dr. Robert C. Atkins Foundation, which was established in 2003 following Dr. Atkins' untimely death. Lead by Mrs. Atkins, the Foundation is dedicated to funding independent scientific research examining the role of metabolism and nutrition in obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease and other serious health concerns. It is one of the few grant-making organizations dedicated to research in this arena, and supports educational programs and endowed professorships at major universities.
The Atkins Foundation's gift will support the independent studies of Burant, an outstanding researcher who seeks to understand the complex biology of metabolism, especially as it relates to diabetes, nutrition, and obesity. It will also support his research aimed at the development of new treatments for diabetes and obesity.
Burant directs the Michigan Metabolomics & Obesity Center (MMOC), and is an associate professor in the Metabolism, Endocrinology and Diabetes division of the Department of Internal Medicine, and in the Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology. He also has an appointment in the U-M Division of Kinesiology.
Burant says that the Atkins Foundation's support will complement his research grants from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disorders, as well as from the American Diabetes Association. He also says that the gift will help the MMOC reach its potential to advance metabolic research at the U-M and bring together researchers from throughout the University who are working on topic related to metabolism, obesity and nutrition.
The MMOC is part of the Michigan Comprehensive Diabetes Center, which was founded in 2005 as an umbrella for diabetes research, education, care and community outreach at the University.
Only six other American universities have been selected to receive gifts to establish professorships: Columbia, Cornell and Duke Universities, the University of Southern California, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
In all, the Atkins Foundation has pledged $13.5 million for the professorships, in addition to millions in research grant funding for independent nutrition studies. The foundation has committed to funding additional applications for research funding from scientists at each of the universities where an Atkins Professorship has been established.
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Scott Emr to Lead Biology Institute at Cornell
Scott Emr approaches science first by asking a basic question. Then comes the hard work of finding an answer. A highly respected biologist who has been hired as the Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 endowed director of a new Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology -- the cornerstone of the $650 million New Life Sciences Initiative -- Emr has used this scientific method to uncover the molecular details of essential processes that occur in all cells.
Emr (pronounced Emmer), currently a University of California-San Diego School of Medicine professor of cellular and molecular medicine and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, will begin his Cornell appointment in February 2007.
Emr's answers to the question of how proteins get in and out of cells, a process called cell membrane trafficking, are so fundamental that the work is found in college biology textbooks. It has given other scientists many new pathways and targets for cutting-edge research on virology, HIV-AIDS, cancer, immunology, development and neurobiology.
His research explains the inner workings of such basic processes as endocytosis, in which proteins attach to receptors on a cell's surface and become encapsulated in vesicles as they forge into the cell's body. The proteins are delivered to areas within the cells where they activate basic cellular processes. Similarly, in the process of secretion, such proteins as insulin are produced within cells and carried by vesicles to the cell's surface, where the vesicle fuses with the cell's membrane and the proteins are released outside the cell.
Emr has used genetics, specifically the genetics of single-celled yeast, to identify the specific molecular pathways that drive these basic processes. Emr said that yeast provides an excellent model for the fundamental biology of all cells.
At Cornell, Emr hopes to again use yeast cells to answer questions of how neurons in the brain can last a lifetime -- people die with the same functioning neurons with which they were born. Neuronal cells have mechanisms for replacing and ridding themselves of inactive or damaged proteins, much like clearing out junk and garbage from a house. Emr will seek to better understand these "garbage clean-up mechanisms," which when impaired can lead to some 40 known inherited neuronal and degenerative diseases, like Tay-Sachs disease.
Emr earned his doctorate in microbiology and molecular genetics at Harvard University in 1981, but his interest in biology began in elementary school when he spent hours watching ants building paths in the yard at his grandparents' house.
Soon after, he bred fish, which led to experiments on them in high school. But, he said, a college course at the University of Rhode Island (where he earned his B.S. in biology in 1976) on bacterial genetics changed his life forever. He recalls being "captivated" by the subject once he understood how genes related to function, and how a single mutation in a bacterial gene can cause the organism to lose its ability to chemically sense its environment.
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Gabriel Garcia Appointed to Head Haas Center for Public Service
Gabriel Garcia, professor of medicine and associate dean of admissions at the Stanford School of Medicine, has been appointed by Provost John Etchemendy to head the Haas Center for Public Service.
Garcia, who succeeds Leonard Ortolano, the UPS Foundation Professor of Civil Engineering, will begin his new position in the fall.
Garcia, who will assume the title of Peter E. Haas Director of the Haas Center, has been a member of the center's faculty steering committee since 1998 and has served on its grant advisory committee. At the Medical School, he served as course director for Medicine 257 and 258, Patient Advocacy in Community Clinics, a service learning course for undergraduates interested in health care. Garcia also has taught undergraduates through his sophomore seminar, The Human Side of Medicine. He was faculty adviser to two undergraduate Alternative Spring Break trips on "Health Care for Marginalized Communities."
Garcia, who joined Stanford from Baylor College of Medicine in 1989, has been a transplant hepatologist in the Liver Transplant Unit of the Stanford Medical Center. His research focuses on hepatitis B and C. He earned his medical degree from New York University and did his postgraduate training at Stanford.
The Haas Center for Public Service connects academic study with public service to strengthen communities and develop effective public leaders. As faculty director, Garcia will serve half time and will focus on policymaking, fundraising and teaching.
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Biochemist Daniel Koshland Wins Welch Award
University of California, Berkeley, biochemist Daniel E. Koshland Jr. has been named the 36th recipient of the international Welch Award in Chemistry for his life-enhancing contributions to biochemistry and medical science.
The honor was announced May 16 by the Welch Foundation, a Houston-based organization that is one of the nation's oldest and largest sources of private funding for basic research in chemistry.
Koshland, an international leader in research on enzymes and receptors and former editor of the journal Science, was honored for applying "the fundamental principles of chemistry to gain new insights and develop novel ideas to explain complex biological reactions," according to a press release issued by the foundation. The 86-year-old Koshland currently is a Professor in the Graduate School in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley, where he has served on the faculty since 1965.
He is the fourth UC Berkeley faculty member to receive the award since it was established in 1972. The others were Neil Bartlett (1976), professor emeritus of chemistry, and the late chemists Kenneth Pitzer (1984) and George Pimental (1986).
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UCI Scientists to Generate New Embryonic Stem Cell Lines
A research team led by UC Irvine neurobiologist Hans Keirstead will generate up to five new human embryonic stem cell lines to be used for research into treatments for spinal cord injury and diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson's disease. The lines will be the first developed at UCI.
Keirstead, co-director of UCI's Stem Cell Research Center, and Gabriel Nistor, a scientist in his laboratory, will derive the new lines from surplus embryos donated by couples undergoing fertility treatment at West Coast Fertility Centers in Orange County. Embryo donations will be made with the informed consent of donor couples and under a procedure approved by UCI's Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee. Once the lines have been created and tested in labs at UCI, Keirstead plans to make them available to researchers worldwide free of charge.
“Generating new stem cell lines is an essential next step in the progression of stem cell research toward the development of new research tools and treatments for human disease,” said Keirstead, associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology. “We are committed to making these lines available to the scientific community so that other researchers may join us in our pursuit of better therapies for devastating diseases.”
Keirstead will work with Dr. David Diaz, West Coast Fertility Centers' medical director, to use novel techniques for developing the new lines, as well as freezing and preserving the lines after they have been created. The techniques for freezing and preserving lines were developed at the clinic for the preservation of embryos.
Stem cells are the “master” cells that give rise to each of the specialized cells within the human body. During organ and tissue development, these cells transform into a particular specialized cell, such as a heart cell or a liver cell, when prompted by their environment or by their internal genetic programming. If researchers can control the processes directing stem cell transformation, they may one day be able to use these cells as a source of healthy replacement cells for tissues damaged by disease or injury. This work has been the subject of Keirstead's recent research.
New embryonic stem cell lines are derived from three- to five-day-old embryos produced during fertilization treatments. The excess embryos are often frozen indefinitely or discarded as medical waste. Donors must give permission before these embryos can be used for research purposes.
Keirstead will make lines not only from healthy embryos, but also from embryos known to harbor genetic abnormalities. Stem cells derived from these lines can be used as cellular models of human disease that may help scientists better understand these genetic diseases.
Funding for the development of new lines at UCI will come from private sources. Since 2001, the U.S. government limits funding for stem cell research to lines that were already in existence before that date.
Keirstead is one of the nation's pioneers in the use of human embryonic stem cells in the study of spinal cord injuries. In 2005, he used a treatment derived from human embryonic stem cells to improve mobility in rats with spinal cord injuries. He plans to use any new stem cell lines he develops for further research in spinal cord injury and disease in his laboratory.
The creation of new stem cell lines represents another step in UCI's development as one of the premier centers for stem cell research in California. The university plans to construct a $60 million Stem Cell Research Institute facility aimed at propelling stem cell technology from the research lab to the clinic.
