University News
Cambridge to Establish Stem Cell Center
The Wellcome Trust has announced funding of £10 million (US$18.4) to establish an international center of excellence in fundamental stem cell research at the University of Cambridge.
The Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research will be led by world-renowned stem cell researchers Professor Austin Smith and Professor Fiona Watt, and is due to open at the University in December 2006.
The Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Wolfson Foundation are also contributing £1.5 million (US$2.8 million) each towards the Centre.
Professor Austin Smith is former Director of the Centre for Stem Cell Research at Edinburgh University where his team made a series of ground-breaking discoveries in stem cell research. He will become Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research in Cambridge.
Taking the post of Deputy Director at the Centre will be Professor Fiona Watt, who has been Head of the Keratinocyte Laboratory at the Cancer Research UK London Research Centre since 1987. Professor Watt is also Deputy Director of the new Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute. Stem cell biology is an important part of fundamental cancer research, and Professor Watt's joint appointment between the two Institutes will strengthen the scientific links between them.
In addition to providing £7 million (US$ 12.8 million) over 5 years for core facilities and a dedicated four year PhD program in stem cell biology, the Wellcome Trust has awarded a £3 million (US$5.5 million) grant to Professor Watt to explore how adult stem cells can be used to develop better skin grafts. Professor Watt's team will investigate how an adult's epidermis (the outer covering of the skin) can be made to produce new hair follicles and glands to lubricate the skin. Her research may also be applicable to stimulating regeneration and production of other specialist cell types, including muscle and brain cells. This would enable the development of therapies using adult stem cell alternatives for numerous diseases and conditions.
The new Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research in Cambridge will be an international centre of excellence in fundamental stem cell research. Stem cells are rare cells that have the capacity to multiply themselves and to produce other, more specialized, cell types. Study of stem cells can improve our understanding of how the human body develops and maintains itself, and of how certain diseases arise. Research in this area offers great potential for future medical treatments.
The Centre will focus on the definition of the genetic and biochemical mechanisms that control how stem cells develop into particular types of cell. This will provide foundations for engineering of stem cells to model particular diseases, drug discovery and regenerative medicine.
Blood stem cells and skin stem cells are already used to treat certain types of leukemia and burns respectively. Transplants of other types of stem cells may allow the replacement of diseased or damaged tissues in degenerative conditions such as diabetes or Parkinson's disease. Moreover, scientists believe that as we learn more about the properties of stem cells it may become feasible in some tissues to activate resident stem cells for repair and rejuvenation.
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University of California Board of Regents Approves Three UCLA Appointments
The University of California Board of Regents has approved appointments to three key UCLA positions.
Thomas H. Rice, vice chancellor for academic personnel
Thomas H. Rice, professor and vice chair of the department of health services at the UCLA School of Public Health and senior research scientist at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, has been appointed UCLA's vice chancellor for academic personnel, effective Aug. 1.
Rice has been at UCLA since 1991. He teaches courses in health economics, research methodology and current issues in health policy. Rice has conducted research projects and published in a number of areas, including physicians' economic behavior, health insurance for the elderly, the Medicare program and health care cost containment, as well as the role of competition in health care reform and managed care. Rice has testified before Congress numerous times on various health policy issues. Before joining the UCLA faculty, he taught at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health.
In 1988, Rice received the Association for Health Services Research Young Investigator Award, given to the outstanding health services researcher in the United States age 35 or younger. In 1992, he received the Thompson Prize from the Association of University Programs in Health Administration, awarded annually to the outstanding health services researcher in the country age 40 or younger. In 1998, he received the Article-of-the-Year Award from the Association for Health Services Research. Rice served as editor of the journal Medical Care Research and Review from 1994–2000. The second edition of his book "The Economics of Health Reconsidered" was published in 2003.
Rice received his bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1976, magna cum laude, with a double major in economics and geography; his master's degree in economics in 1979 from the University of California, Berkeley; and his doctorate in economics in 1982 from UC Berkeley.
Timothy Stowell, dean of the division of humanities
Timothy Stowell, a 25-year veteran of UCLA's linguistics faculty and a noted syntactician, has been named dean of the university's division of humanities, housed in the College of Letters and Science. His appointment is effective immediately.
Stowell, whose appointment was approved July 12, has risen through the ranks of UCLA's prestigious linguistics department, which he joined in 1981 as an assistant professor. The department is considered by linguistics specialists to be at the very top of its field.
As a scholar, Stowell has distinguished himself in the branch of linguistics that explores how meaning is related to grammatical representation. In his early work, he pioneered the research of deriving generalizations in word order for specific languages. In later studies, he developed theories of tense interpretation, the assignment of quantifiers and the properties of noun phrases. In another line of research, he uncovered intricate grammatical rules that govern headline writing, or "Headlinese," as well as other abbreviated forms of written English.
Stowell received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981 and joined the UCLA Department of Linguistics that year. He was promoted to associate professor in 1988 and has served twice as department chair: from 1994–98, and from 2004 to the present.
He has served in visiting professorships at 13 universities and summer institutes in the United States, Europe and Asia. He is the current co-editor of the journal Syntax and has been a longtime participant on the editorial boards of five other publications in his field.
Kathryn A. Atchison, vice provost for intellectual property and industry relations
Kathryn A. Atchison has been appointed vice provost for intellectual property and industry relations. She has been a part of UCLA's faculty since 1987 and has served as interim vice provost since January 2005.
As the leader of the Office of Intellectual Property, Atchison has transformed the organization by, among other things, improving open communication with faculty, initiating a student internship program and moving industry contracting into the office to enable better service to industry.
Atchison's past administrative experience includes more than four years as associate dean for research and knowledge management at the UCLA School of Dentistry.
Atchison received her dental degree from Marquette University School of Dentistry in 1978 and her master's degree in public health from Boston University School of Public Health in 1982. Atchison was selected in a nationwide competition to participate in the Robert Wood Johnson Dental Health Services Research Fellowship at UCLA, from 1984–86, and then joined UCLA's faculty in 1987. She was chosen by the UCLA MultiCampus Program in Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology to participate in the Bureau of Health Professions Mid-Career Fellowship in Geriatric Medicine and Dentistry in 1991. In 2003, Atchison was a primary health care policy fellow at the Department of Health and Human Services.
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Columbus Attorney James Butler Gives UGA $1 Million to Support Student Environmental Research
When he was young, James Butler loved to fish in Georgia's Alcovy and Chattahoochee rivers. But the Columbus attorney fears rapid development may spoil those pleasures for future generations, and he hopes the University of Georgia can help prevent that from happening.
Butler has given his alma mater US$1 million to establish a fellowship program in UGA's Institute of Ecology to help graduate students who are studying environmental problems such as water quality, biodiversity and land use. He said the gift, made through the Arch Foundation, is an investment in preserving Georgia's valuable waterways.
The gift will provide research assistantships to students working on master's degrees in the River Basin Center, a unit in the Institute of Ecology. Butler said he is supporting graduate students – who will be known as Butler Fellows in Ecology – because it's the fastest way to train people who can impact environmental problems in Georgia.
This is Butler's second million-dollar gift to UGA, where he earned a journalism degree in 1972 and a law degree in 1977. His first gift last year created the James E. Butler Scholarship Fund, which pays full tuition for students studying public interest law in UGA's School of Law.
A partner in the Columbus and Atlanta law firm of Butler, Wooten and Fryhofer, Butler is recognized as one of the country's top plaintiffs' lawyers. He is a trustee of the Arch Foundation, which raises and manages private gifts to the University of Georgia. Butler, his two sisters and one brother hold a combined six degrees from UGA, and his son, Jeb, is now studying law at UGA.
Butler, a life-long outdoorsman, said he got a crash course on environmental threats in Georgia while serving on the board of the state Department of Natural Resources from 1998-2005.
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UT Southwestern Scientist Named by Keck Foundation as Distinguished Young Scholar in Medical Research
Dr. Russell DeBose-Boyd, assistant professor of molecular genetics at UT Southwestern Medical Center, has been named a Distinguished Young Scholar in Medical Research by the Los Angeles-based W.M. Keck Foundation.
The award of up to $1 million over five years will support the researcher's work on the enzymes that regulate and control cholesterol production, studies that may shed light on the prevention and treatment of heart disease.
A native of Boswell, Okla., Dr. DeBose-Boyd received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Southeastern Oklahoma State University and his doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Before joining the faculty of UT Southwestern as an instructor in 2001, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the molecular genetics laboratory of two of UT Southwestern's four Nobel laureates, Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Joseph Goldstein . As a young faculty member at UT Southwestern Dr. DeBose-Boyd's early research was supported by the Perot Foundation.
Dr. DeBose-Boyd said being named a Keck Young Scholar is a reflection of the scientific environment in the Department of Molecular Genetics and at UT Southwestern in general.
Drs. Brown and Goldstein received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1985 for their discovery of the underlying mechanisms of cholesterol metabolism.
The W.M. Keck Foundation established the Distinguished Young Scholars in Medical Research Program in 1998 to support groundbreaking research addressing the fundamental mechanisms of human disease. Under the program, each grant recipient's home institution receives an award of up to $1 million to support the scientist's research activities for five years. Nominations from institutions are accepted on an invitation-only basis.
Dr. Hongtao Yu, associate professor of pharmacology at UT Southwestern, was named a Keck Young Scholar in 2003.
Other 2006 winners are: Dr. Luis Amaral of Northwestern University, Dr. Seth Blackshaw of Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Jonathan Bogan of Yale University School of Medicine and Dr. Amy Pasquinelli of the University of California, San Diego.
The W.M. Keck Foundation was established in 1954 by the late Mr. Keck, founder of Superior Oil Co.
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UTD's School of Social Sciences Adopts New Name: School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences
The University of Texas System Board of Regents and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board have approved a new name for the School of Social Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) – the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences – to better reflect the academic focus and offerings of the rapidly-growing organization.
The name change was prompted by the school's dean, Dr. Brian Berry, a world-renowned geographer, economic and urban development expert and member of the National Academy of Sciences, who wanted a new "brand" for the school that provides a more accurate, transparent view of its activities.
"The change recognizes the school's rapid development along a path that emphasizes commitment to strong analytic foundations, interdisciplinary scholarship and research and a broad and deep interface with public policy," Berry said.
According to Berry, the new name was adopted by a majority vote of the school's faculty from among several possibilities. "It was thought to better reflect the breadth of faculty interests and the strong public policy orientation," he said.
The School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences is one of seven schools at UTD and offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in a broad range of fields, including criminology, economics and finance, geography, geospatial science, government and politics, political science, public affairs and sociology.
The school has grown rapidly in recent years, with the number of student majors rising 65 percent since 2002 to the current level of 1,222. To keep pace with the student growth, faculty numbers are increasing, with seven new arrivals this year and 12 others scheduled to join the school in 2007.
Among the recent arrivals are a former program director for economics at the National Science Foundation, a world leader in geospatial science and a retiring deputy administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the federal Office of Management and Budget. Next year, a top-ranked economist from the University of Southern California is among those who will join the school.
Degree programs are expanding as well, as is the school's research portfolio. The school recently began offering Ph.D. degrees for the first time in economics, geospatial science, political science and public affairs, and hopes to receive approval for a doctoral degree program in criminology. Total current research dollars awarded to the school's faculty reached a record level of nearly $5 million with the recent addition of two grants totaling almost $1.5 million.
Berry said that it is not a coincidence that the adoption of a new school name occurred as UTD implements an ambitious university-wide strategic plan that articulates the institution's goal of becoming a major public research university.
Berry said that the school was moving "expeditiously" to make the new name visible by placing it on letterhead, signage and the school's website.
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UTD's Jonsson School to Offer Minor, Certificate in Information Assurance
In response to a growing industry demand for highly skilled workers trained in security and data protection, the Computer Science Department in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) this fall will begin offering a minor and certificate in the field of information assurance.
Courses in the new minor and the certificate program will complement curriculum in the Jonsson School's CyberSecurity and Emergency Preparedness Institute. The institute was created to deal with cyber crime, information assurance and emergency preparedness.
The minor will require the completion of 33 credit hours in such courses as computer science, data structures, operating systems, databases, computer networks, network security and digital forensics, among others.
The certificate program will allow those who already have a degree or related work experience in computer science to gain additional training about issues concerning computer security and information assurance. Earning the certificate requires the completion of three courses — as well as any required prerequisites — in data and applications security, computer and network security and digital forensics.
UTD computer science classes offer students opportunities to prepare for an industrial, business or governmental career in a rapidly changing profession. The university has expanded course offerings not only in information assurance, but also in the areas of cryptography, biometrics, intrusion detection, cyber security, network security, data mining and multimedia and emergency response information systems.
