University News
Gift Launches Center for Psychiatric Research
Representatives of The Stanley Medical Research Institute announced a $100 million gift to the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard to launch a new research center that will combine the strengths of genomics and chemical biology to advance the understanding and treatment of severe mental illnesses.
The philanthropic gift, the largest one ever given to an institution for psychiatric disease research, will support the creation of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, funding research at the center over the next 10 years. Based at the Broad Institute, the Stanley Center will be an interdisciplinary center that will bring together scientists from diverse fields and institutions to pursue collaborative projects. It will build upon the Broad Institute's current psychiatric disease research, which includes work on schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression and unites leading neuroscience and clinical psychiatry researchers at MIT and Harvard. The gift will allow a major expansion of these programs as well as the initiation of new programs.
In the United States alone, more than 8 million people suffer from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and some 17 million are affected each year by major depression. Although the illnesses tend to run in families, suggesting they are influenced by genetics, little is known about their molecular causes. Despite some advances in therapeutics, this dearth of molecular knowledge is a major stumbling block to developing novel, more effective treatments for psychiatric disease.
The new Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research springs from the Broad Institute's Psychiatric Disease Initiative, which includes MIT neuroscience researchers at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Harvard neuroscience and clinical psychiatry researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital.
The Stanley Center will be directed by Edward Scolnick, who founded the Broad Institute's Psychiatric Disease Initiative. A physician-scientist who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Scolnick was a researcher at the National Institutes of Health from 1970-1982, where he worked on cancer, and served as president of Merck Research Laboratories from 1982-2003, where he led efforts to develop 29 new drugs and other therapeutics.
The major projects that will be undertaken at the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research include systematic surveys of the human genome to identify genes that contribute to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and high-throughput chemical screens to uncover novel modes of treatment.
[ FYI Index ]
Antarctic Peak named for Robert Rutford, UT Dallas Professor, Former President
The latest honor bestowed on the former president of The University of Texas at Dallas may be the loftiest of all -- a 14,000-foot-high mountain now bears his name.
The newly-christened Mt. Rutford is a peak that looms over the sparse, snow-shrouded landscape of West Antarctica. It forms the summit of Craddock Massif in the Sentinel Range of the Ellsworth Mountains, the highest mountain ranges on the southernmost continent, which are located south of the Antarctic Peninsula. Temperatures in the mountains average around -20 degrees Fahrenheit.
"Mt. Rutford honors Dr. Robert Rutford, a geologist and one of the world's foremost authorities on Antarctica," said Jerry Mullins, regional coordinator of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Antarctic, Arctic and Canadian Programs in Reston, Virginia. "This honor recognizes his long and substantial contribution to the U.S. Antarctic Research Program and to international Antarctic research."
Rutford served as UT Dallas president from 1982 to 1994. He currently is Excellence in Education Foundation Professor of Geology in the Geosciences Department, where he teaches part-time. He will officially retire from the university at the end of the current semester.
The name Mt. Rutford was approved on Monday by the U.S. national naming authority, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, part of USGS.
The Ellsworth Mountains were discovered from the air in 1935, but until last December, the summit now known as Rutford had never been ascended. On December 9, 2006, and again the following day, members of a multi-national expedition lead by an Australian climber and researcher scaled the peak, planted a global positioning satellite device and retrieved it. The GPS survey showed Rutford to be 4,477 meters, or 14,688 feet, high.
The mountain is not the first Antarctic feature to receive Rutford's name. An ice stream he discovered on the continent, which measures 130 miles by 30 to 40 miles, also bears his name. The mile-thick, fast flowing Rutford Ice Stream drains part of the West Antarctic ice sheet into the sea. In addition, Rutford Avenue on the UT Dallas campus recognizes the many contributions he made to the university as both president and a faculty member.
Rutford's research interests have been in the area of glacial geology and geomorphology, primarily in Antarctica. He first visited the continent in 1959 to conduct research for his Ph.D. dissertation while a student at the University of Minnesota, and has returned some 20 times since.
He has authored or co-authored many scientific papers about Antarctica. His accomplishments include serving as director of the Division of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation for NSF sponsored research in both the Arctic and Antarctic, and chairing the Polar Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences.
From 1998 to 2002, he served as president of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, also known as the International Antarctic Committee, a non-government, multidisciplinary group made up of scientists from throughout the world committed to coordinating and promoting scientific research on the continent. In addition to protecting the continent's environment, the group lends independent technical assistance to the International Antarctic Treaty. The committee is based at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge.
Chief among the many honors bestowed upon Rutford over the years are a distinguished service award from the National Science Foundation and the Antarctic Service Medal.
[ FYI Index ]
UCI Receives $1.8 Million Donation from Estate
The University of California, Irvine has received a gift from the estate of Sylvia H. Robb. The $1.8 million donation will be divided equally between the School of Medicine and the UC Irvine Libraries.
Robb, who died last year at the age of 97, was an avid campus supporter who donated gifts to UC Irvine across a number of areas for more than two decades.
The School of Medicine Dean's Discretionary Fund will receive $928,000, which can be used for meeting a wide range of needs within the school, based on the dean's funding priorities. The gift can support supplementary activities and programs that advance, enhance and expand the mission of the medical school.
The $928,000 portion of the gift to the libraries establishes the Sylvia Holden Robb Library Endowed Fund, which will provide permanent support to maintain and enhance the excellence of the libraries' collections, services and facilities. Robb was a dedicated and generous supporter of the libraries for more than 20 years. Her many gifts to the libraries include the naming of the Graduate and Faculty Reading Room in Langson Library and the establishment of the Sylvia Holden Robb Library Collections Endowed Fund.
Robb acquired her love of libraries as a child, when she would frequently visit her local public library. After finishing high school, she attended the Gary Business College and later moved to Chicago to work for the magazine of the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks.
Robb married Roger Holden in 1936. The couple lived in Chicago, where she worked with the advertising firm J. Walter Thompson. They subsequently moved to Colorado Springs and then to California, settling in San Clemente. Robb became active as a volunteer in a local hospital. Holden died in 1968, and in 1970 she married Dr. Robert Robb, a physician. After he died in 1992, she continued to pursue her love of reading and her support of a wide variety of charitable organizations.
