University News

Energy Department Selects Three Bioenergy Research Centers for $375 Million in Federal Funding

U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Samuel W. Bodman announced that DOE will invest up to $375 million in three new Bioenergy Research Centers that will be located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Madison, Wisconsin; and near Berkeley, California. The Centers are intended to accelerate basic research in the development of cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels, advancing President Bush’s Twenty in Ten Initiative, which seeks to reduce U.S. gasoline consumption by 20 percent within ten years through increased efficiency and diversification of clean energy sources. The Department plans to fund the Centers for the first five years of operation (Fiscal Years 2008-2013).

To bring the latest tools of the biotechnology revolution to bear to advance clean energy production, the Centers will be supported by multidisciplinary teams of top scientists. A major focus will be on understanding how to reengineer biological processes to develop new, more efficient methods for converting the cellulose in plant material into ethanol or other biofuels that serve as a substitute for gasoline. This research is critical because future biofuels production will require the use of feedstocks more diverse than corn, including cellulosic material like agricultural residues, grasses, poplar trees, inedible plants, and non-edible portions of crops.

The Centers will bring together diverse teams of researchers from 18 of the nation’s leading universities, seven DOE national laboratories, at least one nonprofit organization, and a range of private companies. All three Centers are located in geographically distinct areas and will use different plants both for laboratory research and for improving feedstock crops.

The mission of the Bioenergy Research Centers will lie at the frontier between basic and applied science, and will maintain a focus on bioenergy applications. These Centers aim to identify real steps toward practical solutions regarding to the challenge of producing renewable, carbon-neutral energy. At the same time, the Centers will be grounded in basic research, pursuing alternative avenues and a range of high-risk, high-return approaches to finding solutions. To some degree, one key to the Centers’ success will be their ability to develop the more basic dimensions of their research to a point that can easily transition to applied research.

The Department’s three Bioenergy Research Centers will include:

• The DOE BioEnergy Science Center led by the DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The Center Director will be Martin Keller, and collaborators include: Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia; DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado; University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia; Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire; and the University of Tennessee, in Knoxville, Tennessee.
• The DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center will be led by the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin, in close collaboration with Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. The Center Director will be Timothy Donohue, and other collaborators include: DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington; Lucigen Corporation in Middleton, Wisconsin; University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida; DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois; and Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.
• The DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute will be led by DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The Institute Director will be Jay Keasling, and collaborators include: Sandia National Laboratories; DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; University of California - Berkeley; University of California - Davis; and Stanford University in Stanford, California.

Subject to the finalization of contract terms and congressional appropriations, the Centers are expected to begin work in 2008, consistent with President Bush’s Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Request, and would be fully operational by 2009. DOE’s Office of Science issued a competitive Funding Opportunity Announcement in August 2006 to solicit applications. The three Centers were chosen following a merit-based, competitive review process that included external scientific peer review of the applications.

The establishment of the bioenergy research centers culminates a six-year effort by DOE’s Office of Science to lay the foundation for breakthroughs in systems biology for the cost-effective production of renewable energy. In July 2006, DOE’s Office of Science issued a joint biofuels research agenda with the Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy titled “Breaking the Biological Barriers to Cellulosic Ethanol.” The report provides a detailed roadmap for cellulosic ethanol research, identifying key roadblocks and areas where scientific breakthroughs are needed.

Today’s announcement follows other key funding announcements this year to advance President Bush’s Twenty in Ten Initiative, and to make cellulosic ethanol cost competitive with gasoline by 2012. On February 28, 2007, DOE announced up to $385 million for six biorefinery projects that when fully operational are expected to produce more than 130 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year. On May 1, 2007, DOE announced a funding opportunity for $200 million over five years (FY’07-FY’11) to support the development of small scale bio-refineries that produce liquid transportation fuels such as ethanol. Readadditional information on DOE’s biofuels initiatives.

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UCSF Receives $150 Million Pledge for Cancer Center

University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has received a $150 million pledge to support clinical and research programs of the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center. It is the largest philanthropic commitment from an individual ever received by the University and was given anonymously.

Already recognized for its research excellence and regarded as one of the most comprehensive programs in the nation, the UCSF Cancer Center will use the gift to strengthen five major components of its programs.

The gift will support UCSF’s efforts to become a world leader in cancer care and the West Coast hub for experimental therapies in treating cancer patients; develop a world-class database system to support individualized therapies of the future; enhance the Center’s ability to recruit top-league scientific leaders; improve patient care and support services; and further strengthen the Center’s translation of basic research into clinical care.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in America, exceeded only by heart disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Every year, more than 1 million Americans are diagnosed with some form of the disease. The National Cancer Institute estimates that 10.5 million Americans – roughly one in 29 – are now living with a previous diagnosis of cancer.

The UCSF Cancer Center was designated as a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute in 1999 in recognition of the highest level of excellence in both its scientific research and its ability to integrate diverse research approaches to focus on the problem of cancer and improve patient outcomes.

The Center ranks first in California and sixth nationwide in National Cancer Institute research grants and is home to pioneers in research into genetic, cellular and immune system causes and responses to cancer.

Among its many subspecialties, the Center includes flagship programs in breast and prostate cancer and the largest brain tumor program in the nation, which offers state-of-the-art research and treatment for both children and adults. As a Comprehensive Cancer Center, it also maintains programs that focus on cancer prevention, control, and population sciences.

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University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center Receives $50 Million Gift

On June 11, the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center’s new building opened its doors to patients. This week, the U-M Health System announces that it has received an extraordinary gift of $50 million to recognize – and encourage – the Center’s innovative model of caring for people with cardiovascular disease.

That model, never before attempted by a health care institution, emphasizes and rewards cooperation, excellence and results in all areas of the Center’s operations: clinical care, research and education.

The donor believes that the center’s model can succeed and provide a pattern not only for other heart centers, but for all types of health care facilities.

While the gift provides for immediate support for the center’s programs, the donor and the CVC have established benchmarks for success related to customer satisfaction; collaboration among our scientists and physicians; clinical outcomes; research contributions; and excellence in education. The first $25 million will be given over 10 years, beginning this month. The center will receive the remaining $25 million when it meets goals agreed upon by the donor and the center’s leaders.

On behalf of the center’s four physician directors and administrative director, CVC director and cardiologist Kim Eagle, M.D., calls the gift an investment in the future of health care.

The CVC brings together all of the U-M Health System’s specialists in preventing, treating and studying heart disease, blood vessel disorders and stroke – from cardiac surgeons and intensive-care nurses to laboratory scientists, cardiologists and heart-imaging specialists.

On June 11, the first patients were treated at the Center’s new home, a 350,000-square-foot inpatient and outpatient facility at the heart of the U-M medical campus.

While the new building provides a home for much of the Center’s adult care, many adult CVC patients will receive their care in other convenient locations such as Domino’s Farms, Briarwood and other facilities. CVC care also will continue to be offered at University Hospital, and children with congenital heart disease will still receive treatment at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.

No matter where they are treated, patients will be cared for by teams that include members of different medical and surgical specialties — all working together to determine the best course of diagnostic testing, medication, procedures, operations and preventive strategies for each patient.

This represents a change of culture for medicine, the CVC directors say, because it emphasizes teamwork in a new way. Rather than having individual physicians compete to care for specific patients, it rewards teams financially for their performance as a whole.

This gift does the same thing on a broader scale, because it provides specific benchmarks for the Center and allows the donor to review the Center’s performance before releasing the final $25 million.

Specifically, the donor will look at the Center’s performance on clinical measures, to see that U-M is leading the nation in delivering effective care that helps patients have the best outcomes. Another key measure is the Center’s scores on satisfaction surveys – including surveys of its patients, the physicians who refer patients to the Center, and its own faculty and staff.

Other measures include the number of faculty who have academic appointments in more than one division; the amount of research grants won and the number of research publications and patents; and the quality of both the young physicians being trained in cardiovascular specialties at U-M and the educators who teach them.

One other condition set by the donor is that the Center must continue to be led by a team: physician leaders who work together to steer its operations. There are four directors — Eagle; cardiologist David Pinsky, M.D.; cardiac surgeon Richard Prager, M.D.; and vascular surgeon James Stanley, M.D. — who will determine the specific way in which the gift dollars will be used. Melvin Lester, M.D., special assistant to Dr. Kelch and a specialist in cardiovascular medicine, acts as an advisor to the UMHS leadership and CVC directors on major gifts and program planning.

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NIH Awards Nearly $5 Million to Fund Knockout Mouse Repository

Representatives of The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it will provide $4.8 million to establish and support a repository for its Knockout Mouse Project (KOMP). This award is the final component of a more than $50 million trans-NIH initiative to increase the availability of genetically altered mice and related materials. The University of California, Davis (UC Davis) and Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) in Oakland, Calif., will collaborate to preserve, protect, and make available about 8,500 types of knockout mice and related products available to the research community.

“Knockout mice are useful tools that allow researchers to study human conditions such as cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease and then translate discoveries into cures and treatments that will improve public health,” according to Barbara Alving, M.D., Director of the National Center for Research Resources, the NIH component that is leading the repository effort. “This initiative will ensure knockout mouse strains are made available to the research community in an economical and timely manner.”

Knockout mice are lines of mice in which specific genes have been completely disrupted, or knocked out. Systematic disruption of each of the 20,000 genes in the mouse genome will allow researchers to determine the role of each gene in normal physiology and development. More importantly, researchers can use knockout mice to develop better models of many inherited human diseases. Recent advances in DNA technologies, as well as completion of the mouse genome sequence, now make this project feasible.

The repository will archive, maintain, and distribute up to 8,500 strains of embryonic stem cell clones, live mouse lines, frozen embryos and sperm, and vectors — while assuring product quality and availability for all materials. The four-year grant funds establishment and operation of the repository.

Previously funded portions of the KOMP include two awards totaling $47.2 million for the creation of mouse embryonic stem cell lines in which 8,500 different genes have been knocked out. Recipients were Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and a collaborative team from UC Davis, CHORI, and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in England. NIH also supported the establishment of a data coordination center by the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, to track the scheduling and progress of knockout production. In addition, NIH issued smaller awards to the University of Pennsylvania and the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto to improve the efficiency of methods for creating knockout lines.

The repository project is being funded by NCRR, NHGRI, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In addition to those three NIH components, the overall Knockout Mouse Project is being supported by the National Eye Institute; National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; National Institute on Aging; National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders; National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institute on Drug Abuse; National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; National Institute of General Medical Sciences; National Institute of Mental Health; National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease; National Cancer Institute; and the Office of AIDS Research.

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Nanotech Briefs Announces the Third Annual Nano 50 Award Winners

Nanotech Briefs magazine has announced the winners of its third annual Nano 50 awards competition, which recognizes the top 50 technologies, innovators, and products that have significantly impacted, or will impact, the development of nanotechnology. The 50 winners are the most innovative people, designs, and products that will move nanotechnology to key mainstream markets.

Nano 50 nominees were judged by a panel of independent nanotechnology experts in three categories: Technology, Product, and Innovator. Those nominations receiving the 50 highest scores were named Nano 50 winners. This year's winners include:

Innovator: Stephen Y. Chou of Princeton University and founder of Nanonex and NanoOpto Corp.

Technology: The University of Texas at Dallas for their Fuel-powered Artificial Muscles

Product: Starpharma Holdings Limited for their VivaGel Microbiocide

A complete list of this year's Nano 50 is available at: http://www.nanotechbriefs.com/nano50_winners.html.

Nanotech Briefs will present the awards at a special reception and dinner during the National Nano Engineering Conference, November 14-15, at the Boston Marriott Copley Place. Nanotech Briefs is a monthly digital (PDF format) magazine from the publishers of NASA Tech Briefs that reaches more than 10,000 design engineers involved in all aspects of nanotechnology and MEMs. It provides the best of government, industry, and university nanotech innovations with real-world applications in areas such as electronics, materials, sensors, manufacturing, biomedical, optics/photonics, and aerospace/defense.

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University of Nottingham Breaks Ground on Plant Research Center

A £9.2 million research center (US$18.4 million) at The University of Nottingham will break new ground in our understanding of plant growth and could lead to the development of drought-resistant crops for developing countries.

The Centre for Plant Integrative Biology (CPIB) will focus on cutting-edge research into plant biology — particularly the little-studied area of root growth, function and response to environmental cues.

A greater understanding of plant roots, particularly how they respond to different levels of moisture, nutrients and salt in the soil, could pave the way for the development of new drought-resistant crops that can thrive in arid areas and coastal margins of the developing world.

Because it is difficult to study roots — as all their growth occurs below ground level — scientists will develop a 'virtual root' using the latest mathematical modeling techniques. By developing computer models of the root that exactly mimic biological processes, they will be able to observe what is happening at every stage from the molecular scale upwards.

Research in this area is crucial because the roots dictate life or death for a plant through uptake of water and nutrients, and response to environmental factors.

The CPIB, which is based at The University of Nottingham's Sutton Bonington Campus, has its official opening on July 2, 2007.

CPIB brings together experts from four different Schools at the University — Biosciences, Computer Science & IT, Mathematical Sciences, and Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering.

They will create a 'virtual root' of the simple weed Arabidopsis, a species of the Brassica family routinely used for molecular genetic studies. Expertise in Arabidopsis research is already well developed at the Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre, which integrally linked with CPIB.

This expertise will then be broadened into crop species. CPIB researchers ultimately aim to integrate their 'virtual root' with those of other international projects that model shoot and leaf development, leading to a generic computer model of a whole plant which will again be used to advance crop and plant science.

Representatives from UK research councils, industry, publishers, and external academics will gather at the opening event on July 2 with University of Nottingham staff from the four academic schools involved. The event will feature talks by members of the CPIB and invited speakers, including:

• Professor Philip Benfey, Duke University, USA
• Professor Jonathan Lynch, Penn State University, USA
• Professor Peter Hunter, University of Auckland, New Zealand.

CPIB is funded by the Systems Biology joint initiative of BBSRC and EPSRC, which has provided £27 million (US$54 million) for six specialized centers across the UK.

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Lord Robert May Awarded Copley Medal

Lord Robert May OM AC FRS, Professor of Zoology at Oxford University, has been awarded the Royal Society’s Copley medal, the world’s oldest prize for scientific achievement.

Lord May, a professor in the Zoology Department and an Emeritus Fellow of Merton College, has been awarded the prize for his exceptional contributions to ecology and mathematics. He works on the factors influencing the diversity and abundance of plant and animal species and the rates, causes and consequences of extinction.

The Copley medal, the Royal Society’s highest honour, was first awarded in 1731, 170 years before the first Nobel Prize. It is awarded for outstanding achievements in scientific research and its previous recipients include Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

Beginning his career as a theoretical physicist, May went on to apply mathematical techniques to the study of population biology and make major advances in this field. This research has clarified our understanding of the relation between the structure of an ecosystem and its ability to handle disturbance (whether natural or human-created). His studies of models proposed as descriptions for the behavior of insect and fish populations were one of two strands that brought the new discipline of chaos center stage across the sciences in the 1970s. His later research has also reshaped our understanding of how to control infectious diseases in both humans and other animals.

May has been Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government and head of the Office of Science and Technology (1995–2000) and President of the Royal Society (2000–5). He was appointed Knight Bachelor in 1996, a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1998, and a member of the Order of Merit in 2002. In 2001 he was created a life peer, Baron May of Oxford. He has been a professor at Oxford University since 1988.

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Thomas S. Robertson Is Named Dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School

Thomas S. Robertson, executive faculty director of the Institute for Developing Nations at Emory University and former dean of Emory's Goizueta Business School, has been named dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

The appointment, effective Aug. 1, was announced by Penn President Amy Gutmann and Provost Ron Daniels.

Robertson, the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Marketing at Emory, is an expert in marketing strategy and innovation with extensive international experience in higher education and the business community. He was dean of Goizueta from 1998 to 2004 and is widely credited with building it into one of the strongest schools at Emory, positioning it as a leading international business school.

From 1971 to 1994, Robertson was a faculty member at Wharton, where he was the Pomerantz Professor of Marketing and chair of the Marketing Department. He also served as associate dean for executive education and led the effort that built a major conference center on campus, designed an innovative set of new senior-management programs and substantially increased financial contributions.

Huntsman, vice chair of the University's Board of Trustees, served of counsel to the president during the dean search.

As chair of international strategy for Emory's president, Robertson developed and implemented a university-wide plan for internationalization. While dean of Goizueta, he increased the size of the faculty 73 percent, doubled revenues, nearly doubled the school's endowment, developed new international alliances, spurred major growth in executive-education programs, added a major new building and launched a new Ph.D. program.

From 1994 to 1998, Robertson was Sainsbury Professor and chair of marketing and from 1995 to 1998 deputy dean of the London Business School. Earlier in his career, he was an assistant professor at the Anderson School at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at Harvard Business School.

An expert on marketing strategy and competitive behavior, the diffusion of innovation and consumer behavior -- particularly the impact of advertising on children, Robertson is author, co-author or editor of a dozen books and almost 100 scholarly articles and book chapters.

Robertson earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in marketing from Northwestern University in 1966 after completing his B.A. at Wayne State University in 1963.

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Issues in Science and Technology: Action Needed to Avert Global Water Crisis

Because the water needed to raise crops to feed the world’s burgeoning population is becoming scarce, efforts to produce food with less water will be critical to averting a crisis, according to an article in the summer 2007 edition of Issues in Science and Technology.

Issues in Science and Technology is the award-winning journal of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine and the University of Texas at Dallas.

In Water Scarcity: The Food Factor, David Molden and colleagues at the International Water Management Institute in Colombo, Sri Lanka, discuss the findings of the recently released Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture and recommend solutions.

In The University As Innovator: Bumps in the Road, Robert Litan and colleagues at the Kauffman Foundation argue that many university technology transfer offices have become bottlenecks rather than facilitators of innovation. New approaches that maximize the volume of innovations brought to the marketplace are needed.

In Community College: The Unfinished Revolution, James E. Rosenbaum and colleagues at Northwestern University argue that although public two-year colleges have dramatically improved college access for large numbers of disadvantaged students, serious deficiencies in how they operate are limiting their value.

Other articles in the summer Issues include:

1. Does Science Policy Matter? According to Daniel Sarewitz of Arizona State, policy would matter if the United States had a real science policy that addressed the broad social implications of science and technology. What it has instead is science politics, with various groups spending most of their time battling for increases in the federal research and development budget.
2. The Promise of Data-Driven Policymaking. The federal government is only scratching the surface in its use of information technologies to collect, analyze, and use data in innovative ways, write Daniel Esty of Yale University and Reece Rushing of the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC.
3. Full Disclosure: Using Transparency to Fight Climate Change. An essential first step in any effective climate change policy is to require major contributors to fully disclose their emissions, argue Elena Fagotto and Mary Graham of Harvard University.
4. Tiny Technology, Enormous Implications. The National Nanotechnology Initiative should seize the opportunity to develop a new technology the right way, with an awareness of its broad social context, write Ronald Sandler and Christopher Bosso of Northeastern University.