University News
University of Texas Investment Management Company Board Announces President and CEO Bob Boldt Resignation
The University of Texas Investment Management Co. (UTIMCO) Board of Directors announced Sept. 5 that UTIMCO President, CEO and Chief Investment Officer Bob Boldt has resigned to return to the private sector.
Boldt, a former senior investment officer for the California Public Employees' Retirement System, was appointed president and chief executive officer of UTIMCO in February 2002.
Boldt came to UTIMCO with 28 years of experience in investment management. He had been managing director of Pivotal Asset Management, San Francisco. Prior to that he was senior investment officer for CalPERS' Global Public Markets Investments, with responsibilities for the management of all of CalPERS' public markets investments. Previously he worked in the investment field for Scudder, Stevens & Clark of San Francisco; Concord Capital Management of San Mateo, Calif.; American National Bank of Chicago; and the Northern Trust Co. of Chicago.
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UT Southwestern Heart Research Aided by $11.9 Million from Donald W. Reynolds Foundation
The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation has provided a grant of $11.9 million to UT Southwestern Medical Center that will allow researchers to continue the Dallas Heart Study, a groundbreaking investigation of cardiovascular disease that involves thousands of Dallas County residents.
The foundation's three-year grant to the Donald W. Reynolds Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center at UT Southwestern supplements previous foundation grants awarded to the institution totaling $42 million and brings total Reynolds Foundation support for UT Southwestern to nearly $54 million.
The foundation's initial grant created the Reynolds Center in 1999.
The additional three years of funding will allow UT Southwestern researchers to continue their investigation into factors that contribute to heart disease in a large multiethnic group of individuals from Dallas County, saidDr. Helen Hobbs,director of the Reynolds Center.
As part of the Dallas Heart Study, investigators have obtained detailed medical histories from more than 6,000 Dallas residents; more than half of the participants provided blood samples and underwent multiple imaging studies to examine the heart. Dr. Hobbs and her colleagues have used this information to identify new drug targets for the prevention and treatment of heart disease.
The goal of the project is to use the extensive medical data to develop individualized "prescriptions for prevention," said Dr. Hobbs, an investigator in UT Southwestern's Howard Hughes Medical Institute who also directs the Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development.
The new funding will also continue to support Dr. Hobbs' research on genetic factors affecting heart disease risk, as well as molecular research aimed at preventing and treating harmful enlargement of the heart, an effort led byDr. Eric Olson,chairman of molecular biology and director of the Nancy B. and Jake L. Hamon Center for Basic Research in Cancer and the Nearburg Family Center for Basic Research in Pediatric Oncology.
Another project is aimed at discovering whether stem cells from adult heart or bone marrow can repair an injured heart. That study is led byDr. Daniel Garry,associate professor of internal medicine and molecular biology.
As part of the Reynolds Center program, UT Southwestern researchers are collaborating on projects with investigators at the UT Health Science Center at Houston as well as researchers at the two other Reynolds cardiovascular clinical research centers at Harvard and Johns Hopkins universities.
The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Mr. Reynolds was the founder and principal owner of the Donrey Media Group. When he died in 1993, the company included more than 70 businesses, the majority of which were in the communications/media field. The sale of Donrey Media Group in 1993 provided for the foundation's endowment. Headquartered in Las Vegas, it is one of the 50 largest private foundations in the United States.
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UCLA School of Dentistry to Receive $1 Million to Establish the David and Miki Lee Endowment Fund
On behalf of the UCLA School of Dentistry, the UCLA Foundation has received a pledge of $1 million from Dr. David Y. Lee and Dr. Miki M. Nam for the purpose of establishing the David and Miki Lee Endowment Fund. A discretionary endowment, the fund will benefit the School of Dentistry's academic programs.
Lee is president of Jamison Properties, Inc., a commercial real estate company with holdings in Southern California and Dallas, Texas, and a member of the board of counselors of the UCLA School of Dentistry. An internist with an M.D. degree from Northwestern University, Lee is a "double Bruin," having earned his master's of public health from the UCLA School of Public Health in 1979 and his master's of business administration from the Anderson School in 1981. His wife received a doctoral degree in dental surgery from the UCLA School of Dentistry in 1983.
The couple resides in Beverly Hills and is active in the Korean American community in Los Angeles. Longtime supporters of the UCLA School of Dentistry, they have made other philanthropic gifts, including a founding membership in the Apollonian Society, new cubicles in the Bisco Dental Teaching Laboratory and a discretionary research fund in the field of periodontics.
The David and Miki Lee Endowment will support the UCLA School of Dentistry's academic programs in perpetuity, according to Dr. No-Hee Park, dean of the UCLA School of Dentistry.
The UCLA School of Dentistry, which is dedicated to improving the oral health of the people of California, the nation and the world, has established an international reputation for its teaching, research, patient care and public service initiatives. The school provides education and training programs that develop leaders in dental education, research, the profession and the community; conducts research programs that generate new knowledge, promote oral health and investigate the cause, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of oral disease, and delivers patient-centered oral health care to the community and state. For more information, visit the UCLA School of Dentistry website .
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Amanda Oneacre Rockow Named U. T. Dallas' Vice President for Public Affairs
Signaling a desire to develop even stronger relationships and programs with stakeholders in the community as well as with state and local elected and appointed officials, Dr. David E. Daniel, president of The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) today announced the appointment of Amanda Oneacre Rockow as the university's vice president for public affairs.
Currently the vice president of government relations at the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce, Rockow will join U.T. Dallas Oct. 9. She replaces Carlos Peña, who left the university in July for a position in the private sector.
Reporting directly to Daniel, Rockow will serve as the chief governmental and community relations liaison for the university. She will be charged with building relationships with state and local political officials, monitoring legislative and regulatory initiatives, representing the university before civic and community groups and businesses, and providing leadership to the office of public affairs.
Rockow also will work with Daniel to develop and implement strategic and operational plans for the university's public affairs program, to engage local and state leadership with the university's vision and to contribute to the quality educational experience that exemplifies UTD.
Daniel noted that Rockow's background and experience would be a huge benefit to the university.
During 10 years with the Greater Dallas Chamber, Rockow was responsible for lobbying for regional business issues at the local, state and federal levels. In addition to researching and analyzing issues of potential impact on the Dallas region's business community, she also developed and recommended policy positions via an intricate network of volunteers and committees and advocated critical issues to elected representatives.
Prior to that, Rockow worked with the City of Boulder Youth Services in Boulder, Colo., where she managed the Youth Opportunities Fund, which provided city money for youth participation in cultural, recreational or educational activities in return for community service.
Rockow received her B.A. from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
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Harold Craighead Returns to Directorship of Nanobiotechnolgy Center
Harold Craighead, the Charles W. Lake Jr. Professor of Engineering and professor of applied and engineering physics, has returned to the post of director of the Cornell Nanobiotechnology Center (NBTC).
Craighead was the first director when the center was created in January 2000. In June 2001, he was named interim dean of the College of Engineering, and Barbara Baird, professor of chemistry and chemical biology, became director of NBTC. After W. Kent Fuchs was named dean of the College of Engineering in March 2002, Craighead became co-director of the center.
NBTC is a National Science and Technology Center of the National Science Foundation, the only one of its kind in the nation, that applies the tools and processes of nano- and microfabrication to build devices that operate on the same scale as biological systems to advance research in molecular and cell biology. As the home of NBTC, Cornell leads a research consortium that includes Princeton University, Clark Atlanta University, the Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health, Howard University and Oregon Health Sciences University.
Craighead received his B.S. in physics from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1974, and his Ph.D. in physics from Cornell in 1980. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1989. His research focuses on improving the techniques of nanofabrication and using nanostructures as tools in biological research. His research group has created devices that can detect and identify single bacteria and viruses, nanoscale gas sensors and nanofluidic devices that can separate, count and analyze individual DNA molecules.
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Oxford Scientist Wins Nature/Nesta Lifetime Achievement Award
Andrew McMichael, Professor of Molecular Medicine at Oxford University, has won the life-time achievement award in the annual Nature/Nesta awards, which were presented at the British Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Norwich.
The awards recognize the 'unsung heroes' of science, who drive innovation by inspiring and guiding the next generation of scientists.
Professor McMichael is Director of the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford University and has worked most notably on research into virus-specific human T cells. In the last ten years he has attempted to develop vaccines for HIV that stimulate strong T cell responses in humans.
His nomination statement noted that 'he is always humble, fair and generous and supportive. Such an environment is very conducive to feeling able to talk ideas or results through without concerns. This undoubtedly fosters discussion and creativity. He is immensely skilled scientifically and is able (in the kindest and most constructive way) to guide all in what usually turns out to be the right direction.'
Professor McMichael shares his award with Professor Godfrey Hewitt of the University of East Anglia.
The awards are a collaboration between the journal Nature and Nesta, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.
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Researchers Map Out Networks that Determine Cell Fate
A two-step process appears to regulate cell fate decisions for many types of developing cells, according to researchers from the University of Chicago.
This finding sheds light on a puzzling behavior. For some differentiating stem cells, the first step leads not to a final decision but to a new choice. In response to the initial chemical signal, these cells take on the genetic signatures of two different cell types. It often requires a second signal for them to commit to a single cellular identity.
In the Aug. 25 2006 issue of Cell, the researchers, working with hematopoietic stem cells, which give rise to the many types of blood cells, show how "pioneer transcription factors" trigger the first step, pushing these stem cells towards this mixed lineage, midway between two related cell types — in this case between a macrophage and a neutrophil. The study author is Harinder Singh, the Louis Block Professor of Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at the University of Chicago.
Then one of two rival "secondary factors" activates the genes that lead to one cell type and shuts down the genes that lead to the alternative.
Understanding the circuitry that controls these decisions is central to learning how different kinds of stem cells develop. It provides insights into how to transform stem cells into therapeutically useful cells and suggests possible new treatments for leukemias, in which a persistent mixed lineage seems to drive cancerous proliferation.
Although the researchers worked only with blood-forming stem cells, they suspect that the same basic regulatory principles govern cell type determination in other tissues such as skin, brain and intestine.
This finding "represents a significant advance in understanding the molecular mechanisms that regulate [stem cell] development," according to a commentary in the journal by Dale Muzzy of Harvard University and Alexander van Oudenaarden of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Irreversible resolution of lineage priming appears to be a common feature of blood cell differentiation and may in fact be a general feature of other developmental processes."
The researchers focused on how hematopoietic stem cells developed into one of two types of white blood cells: macrophages or neutrophils. Macrophages are the long-lived garbage disposals of the immune system, indiscriminately engulfing and digesting cellular debris and pathogens. The shorter-lived neutrophils are the immune system's vultures, flocking to the site of an infection to target and ingest invading organisms.
Although both cell types come from cells known as myeloid progenitors, each type relies on its own set of functionally active genes to carry out its particular role in fighting infection. A major scientific puzzle has been how and why immature hematopoietic stem cells initially express genes that are characteristic of both cell lineages.
Until recently, however, there was no experimental system that researchers could manipulate to solve this puzzle. A few years ago, Singh and colleagues identified a transcription factor called PU.1 that acts as the primary signal, a central genetic switch to initiate development of myeloid progenitor cells. Other researchers identified a rival transcription factor, C/EBPa.
Cells from mice bred in Singh's lab to lack PU.1 allowed the researchers to manipulate the cells' decision-making machinery by introducing different amounts of PU.1. When the researchers introduced low concentration of PU.1, they found that the cells activated both macrophage and neutrophil genes.
When they increased the concentration of PU.1, however, the cells quickly passed through a transitory mixed lineage state and produced new regulatory proteins that activated macrophage genes and repressed neutrophil genes. Higher levels of C/EBPa tipped the balance the other way.
The researchers were then able to identify both sets of antagonistic secondary regulators. Egr-1 and Egr-2 activate macrophage and repress neutrophil genes. Gif-1 is required to turn on neutrophil genes and repress macrophage counterparts.
Such counteracting repression circuitry may be the key to understanding stem cell regulation in general, Singh said. "We think that if this property of mixed lineage transcriptional priming is shared amongst different kinds of stem cells, then resolving these mixed-lineage states will invariably involve counteracting repressors."
In collaboration with colleague Aaron Dinner, the research team also formulated a mathematical model that depicts the regulatory network governing progenitor cell development. This model, he said, could have important implications for the therapeutic use of stem cells to rejuvenate damaged tissues.
Understanding of leukemias also could be aided by insight into this regulatory circuitry, Singh said. Many leukemias exhibit mixed-lineage patterns of gene expression, for example of both macrophage and lymphocyte genes.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institutes of Health funded the study. The experimental work was spearheaded by Peter Laslo, who was aided by Chauncey Spooner, David Lancki, Roger Sciarmmas and Benjamin Gantner. The mathematical modeling was developed by Aryah Warmflash and Aaron Dinner. The authors are members of the Gordon Center for Integrative Science at the University of Chicago.
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Berkeley Aims For MRI On the Cheap and On the Go
When we hear the term "MRI," most of us probably think of a special treatment room in a hospital with a huge doughnut-shaped machine that costs a lot of money and makes a lot of noise. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are looking to change that perception with the successful testing of a laser-based MRI technique that would make the technology compact and portable, relatively cheap, and quiet.
"We have developed a novel approach for the detection of MRI based on optical atomic magnetometry," said chemist Alexander Pines, one of the world's leading authorities on NMR/MRI technology. Pines holds a joint appointment as a chemist with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and with UC Berkeley, where he is the Glenn T. Seaborg Professor of Chemistry. "Our technique provides a viable alternative for MRI detection with substantially enhanced sensitivity and time resolution for various situations where traditional MRI is not optimal."
Pines led the development of this new MRI technique along with Dmitry Budker, who holds a joint appointment with Berkeley Lab's Nuclear Science Division and UC Berkeley's Physics Department. Shoujun Xu, a member of Pines' research group, conducted the MRI measurements. The three were co-authors of a paper about this technique which appeared in the Aug 22 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). Other authors of the PNAS paper were Valeriy Yashchuk, Marcus Donaldson and Simon Rochester.
MRI, which stands for magnetic resonance imaging, and its sister technology, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, are based on a property of atomic nuclei with an unpaired proton or neutron called "spin." Such nuclei spin on an axis like miniature tops, giving rise to a magnetic moment, which means the nuclei act as if they were bar magnets with a north and south pole. When exposed to an external magnetic field, these spinning "bar magnets" attempt to align their axes along the lines of magnetic force. Since the alignment is not exact, the result is a wobbling rotation, or "precession," that's unique to each type of atom.
If, while exposed to the magnetic field, the precessing nuclei are also hit with a radiofrequency (rf) pulse, they will absorb and re-emit energy at specific frequencies according to their rate of precession. When the rf pulse is combined with magnetic field gradients, a spatially encoded signal is produced that can be detected and translated into images.
Obtaining a spatially encoded MRI signal from a sample depends upon polarizing the spins of its precessing nuclei so that an excess points in one direction, either "up" or "down." Conventional MRI technology uses an exceptionally strong external magnetic field to produce a detectable signal. The stronger the magnetic field, the stronger the signal, which means a large and expensive cryogenic high-field magnet.
A smaller magnet results in less polarization and a weaker MRI signal, which therefore requires a more sensitive means of signal detection. One alternative being explored is the use of SQUIDs (superconducting quantum interference devices), which can detect the faintest of magnetic signals but must be cooled to a temperature of near absolute zero. This requirement makes SQUIDs expensive and somewhat tricky devices to use. It also limits the situations in which they can be effectively deployed.
The alternative MRI technology being developed by Pines, Xu, Budker and their colleagues is also highly sensitive to low-field magnetic signals but offers the enormous advantage of being operable at room temperatures.
This new laser-based approach to MRI is derived from two technological advances. One, developed by the Pines' research group, physically separates the two basic steps of MRI, signal encoding and detection. Physically separating these two steps enables each to be optimized for sensitivity. The other advance, developed by the Budker research group, is a highly sensitive atomic magnetometer that's based on a phenomenon called "nonlinear magneto-optical rotation." With this magnetometer, a sample of alkali atoms featuring a single unpaired electron is vaporized in a glass cell. The unpaired electron makes the atoms themselves act like spinning bar magnets, with a magnetic moment three orders of magnitude stronger than that of precessing nuclei.
A beam of laser light "pumps" the atoms so that their spins are polarized, then "probes" the polarized atoms for an MRI signal.
According to Budker, instead of the multimillion dollar costs of a conventional MRI system, this alternative MRI technology would cost only a few thousand dollars to implement.
In the MRI system that the Berkeley researchers tested, the fluid to be imaged, water, was passed through two small cells for signal encoding, then transported to a U-shaped detection area for interrogation by a pair of Budker's magnetometers. The magnetometers were oriented so that they detected the MRI signal with opposite signs. This configuration dramatically improved the signal-to-noise ratio, enabling the researchers to detect an MRI signal from microliters of water in 0.1 second without the presence of a strong magnet.
Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California. Visit the Berkeley Lab website.
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Yale School of Management Launches New MBA Curriculum
Representatives of The Yale School of Management introduce an innovative MBA curriculum that replaces courses in finance, marketing, and other subjects that have been the mainstay of business education for the last 50 years with multidisciplinary courses that cut across functional boundaries to provide management education in a richer, more relevant context. Yale's new approach aligns the way management is taught with the way managers operate every day and challenges students to shape their career goals around their personal values and aspirations. The 208 students of the Class of 2008 begin the new courses today, the start of the 2006-2007 academic term.
The Yale SOM faculty unanimously approved the framework for the new curriculum in March, 2006. Since then, teams of senior faculty have worked to design all new courses and original materials. Courses in the new first-year curriculum are taught in three segments: Orientation to Management, Organizational Perspectives, and the Integrated Leadership Perspective.
The heart of the new first-year curriculum is a series of eight multidisciplinary courses, called Organizational Perspectives, structured around the organizational roles a manager must engage, motivate, and lead in order to solve problems – or make progress – within organizations. These roles are both internal – the Innovator, the Operations Engine, the Employee, and Sourcing and Managing Funds (or CFO) – and external – the Investor, the Customer, the Competitor, and State and Society. Each course draws on topics and insights from a variety of functional management disciplines to study the managerial challenges each role presents.
An added advantage of presenting disciplinary knowledge by role is that it allows ethical and value-based issues to be seamlessly integrated into the curriculum. Many of the value-based dilemmas that arise in organizations are specific to a manager's engagement with a particular role. For example, issues of fiduciary responsibility arise in the context of relating to the investor, while issues of providing honest feedback to a client who doesn't want to hear it occurs in the context of the customer.
The first segment of the new curriculum, Orientation to Management, features courses that introduce students to basic business concepts and skills. A course on Problem Framing provides students with frameworks and strategies for structuring management problems in ways that are organizationally tractable. Students also begin to develop their career plans through a Careers course that focuses not on how to find a job, but on how to think about how personal aspirations and values intersect with career goals in the long-term. A formal, required Mentorship Program will provide feedback to students on academic performance, interpersonal skills, and career aspirations. Groups of 13 or 14 MBA students will be supported by a mentor team consisting of a faculty member, a staff member, and a second-year student.
The final segment of the first-year curriculum, the Integrated Leadership Perspective, presents a series of complex business case studies structured around issues of scale, from small entrepreneurial start-ups to large multinational corporations. The purpose of these cases is not only to highlight the management and leadership challenges associated with guiding organizations of different size and scope, but also to give exposure to career-defining challenges that will prompt students to reflect on the challenges that they wish to pursue. Because comparatively little interdisciplinary teaching materials exist, the faculty and the school's case writing team have developed new case material especially for the new Yale MBA curriculum. The courses in the Integrated Leadership and Organizational Perspectives will also draw heavily on real-world data sources such as 10-Ks and research reports, which are not typically integrated into traditional MBA course work.
Also as part of its MBA curriculum innovation, Yale SOM becomes the first major business school to require students to study abroad. In January, between the first and second semesters, students will complete a required two-week International Experience where they will be rapidly immersed in a new environment, engage in intensive study, meet with business and government leaders, and complete a trip project. For this academic year, the list of countries for these faculty-led trips include Argentina, China, Costa Rica, India, Japan, and Singapore, as well as a combined trip to England and Poland and another combined trip to South Africa and Tanzania. The insights students gain during the experience will allow them to bring a global perspective back to class discussions.
