www. universityofcalifornia.edu UC: Serving California through education, research and public service Vol. 17, No. 1, July 2006 The following is a glimpse of Tech prize … Shuji Nakamura, a UC Santa Barbara some recent achievements by the professor of materials and of electrical and computer faculty, staff and students of the engineering, has been awarded the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize for his invention of revolutionary new light University of California and the sources: blue, green, and white light-emitting diodes and the national laboratories managed blue laser diode. The Millennium Technology Prize, which by the university. includes a cash prize of one million Euros (approximately $1.3 million), is the world’s biggest technology award and recognizes outstanding technological achievement. IN THE NEWS Largest gift … Two long-time Riverside couples are HEALTH AND NUTRITION collaborating on the largest gift ever to UC Riverside. The Alzheimer’s breakthrough … Researchers at UC Riverside $15.5-million planned gift from the charitable trusts of Bart and colleagues have found evidence that weakened or and Barbara Singletary and William and Toby Austin will be suppressed immune responses may be responsible for used to create 22 professorships in social sciences, medical Alzheimer’s disease and that boosting the immune system education and research, and agriculture. This will nearly of Alzheimer’s mice with cells from normal mice causes double the number of endowed professorships at UCR. dramatic improvement in learning and memory. The William Austin and Bart Singletary were partners for 35 years findings, by Douglas Ethell, assistant professor in UCR’s in William Austin Co., a property management firm, now biomedical sciences division, and colleagues, were based on a owned by Singletary’s son, Chris, and William Austin. 2002 report by Ethell that found that beta-amyloid, a protein, Interim appointment ... Norman Abrams, a professor increases the amount of the immune suppressor, Fas ligand, emeritus of law at UCLA, has been named acting chancellor and that prolonged suppression of immune responses to that of the UCLA campus. Albert Carnesale, chancellor since mid- protein is implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. 1997, retired June 30. A search for a permanent chancellor Helping infants … Just a two-minute delay in clamping continues, and is expected to conclude by the end of the year. a baby’s umbilical cord can boost the child’s iron reserves Abrams, 73, served as UCLA’s vice chancellor of academic and prevent anemia for months, report nutritionists at UC personnel from 1991 to 2001. Davis. Iron deficiency is a concern for both wealthy and poor Astronomy honor … Saul Perlmutter, a member of the nations. It is a problem particularly in developing countries, physics division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a where half of all children become anemic during their first UC Berkeley physics professor and leader of the international year, putting them at risk of serious developmental problems Supernova Cosmology Project, has won the Shaw Prize that may not be reversible, even with iron treatments. in astronomy for the discovery that the expansion of the Rare diseases … Researchers from the UCLA David Geffen universe is accelerating. He shares the $1-million prize with School of Medicine will participate in the National Institutes two other researchers. The Shaw Prizes, hailed as the Nobel of Health’s first-ever clinical studies of its Rare Diseases Prizes of the East, is administered by the Shaw Foundation. Clinical Research Network. The network has received five- Representing staff … Lynda Brewer, assistant director of year funding awards totaling $71 million. More than 20 capital planning at UC Irvine, has been named staff adviser studies are expected to open in the next few months at about to the UC Board of Regents – the first employee in the 50 sites across the United States and in Brazil, Japan and the university system to be chosen for the role under a formal United Kingdom.. UCLA researchers will open six studies on selection process. In the two-year appointment that began urea cycle disorders, the failure to metabolize the nitrogen in July 1, she will attend open sessions of the regents’ meetings, proteins, episodic ataxia syndrome, a neurological disorder committee meetings and special regents events. In the non- and bone marrow failure disease. voting position, she will serve as a conduit between staff and the regents. Brewer began working at UCI in 1976 and has been active in UCI’s Staff Assembly for more than a decade. Cancer survivors … UC San Francisco pediatric oncology Elder care … People aged 70 years and older with limited specialists have developed a new tool to address the needs literacy skills are one and one half to two times as likely to of survivors of childhood cancer: a pocket-sized “health have poor health and poor health care access as people with passport” the size of a credit card. Distributed to patients adequate or higher reading ability, according to a study led in the Survivors of Childhood Cancer Program at UCSF by researchers at the San Francisco Veterans Administration Children’s Hospital, the passport is aimed at educating the Medical Center and UC San Francisco. Elders with limited survivors, their families and physicians about their disease, literacy, which the researchers define as a reading level lower their treatment and the potential long-term consequences, than ninth grade, were one and a half times more likely than empowering them to know their individualized follow- other study participants to report poor overall health and up recommendations. With advances in pediatric cancer diabetes, and twice as likely to report depression. The study treatments, about 70 percent of all children diagnosed with authors note that self-reported health has been found in cancer should expect to live long-term. other studies to correlate strongly with actual health. Stem cell lines … A research team led by UC Irvine neurobiologist Hans Keirstead will generate up to five new THE CUTTING EDGE human embryonic stem cell lines to be used for research Diagnostic test … Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory into treatments for spinal cord injury and diseases such scientists, in partnership with the federal Homeland Security as diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. The lines will be the and Agriculture departments and UC Davis, have developed first developed at UCI. Keirstead, co-director of UCI’s Stem a rapid diagnostic test that simultaneously tests for foot-and- Cell Research Center, and Gabriel Nistor, a scientist in his mouth disease and six other look-alike diseases in livestock. laboratory, will derive the new lines from surplus embryos The new candidate test, which is still undergoing validation, donated by couples undergoing fertility treatment at West reduces the period for diagnosing all seven diseases from Coast Fertility Centers in Orange County. days to hours, and could significantly reduce costs. The concept of an assay that could test for multiple livestock DEVELOPMENTS AND DISCOVERIES diseases grew out of the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth The “Big One” … A researcher investigating several facets disease in England that caused about $5 billion in losses in of the San Andreas Fault has produced a new depiction food and agriculture and even greater losses in tourism. of the earthquake potential of the fault’s southern, highly Systems recognized … UC Merced is a 2006 laureate in the populated section. The new study shows that the fault has Computerworld Honors Program based on the identity- been stressed to a level sufficient for the next “big one” based service architecture the information technology – an earthquake of magnitude seven or greater – and the department developed for the new campus. From scratch, the risk of a large earthquake in this region may be increasing department created the identity management system so that faster than researchers had believed, according to Yuri a person needs to remember only one login and password, Fialko of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San even if he or she begins as an applicant, then progresses to Diego. Fialko has produced the clearest evidence to date become a student, an alumnus, an employee or even faculty. of the strain buildup that will ultimately result in a large UC Merced’s Cat Card, or campus ID card, is a physical earthquake along the southern San Andreas Fault. Such manifestation of the identity management system for use as an event would be felt in the Los Angeles and San Diego a debit card, a library card, ID card and a door key. regions. Kelp forests … Overfishing presents a much greater risk to PLANETS AND ENVIRONMENT the kelp forest ecosystems that span the West Coast – from Chlorine and ozone … Standard methods of predicting air Alaska to Mexico’s Baja Peninsula – than the effects of run- pollution don’t take atmospheric chlorine into account, but off from fertilizers or sewage from the shore, say scientists the chemical could be responsible for 10 percent or more at UC Santa Barbara. The findings have important of daily ozone production in local air, research at UC Irvine implications for the design of California’s Marine Protected has found. Chlorine salts are naturally present in coastal Areas. Conducted by UCSB’s National Center for Ecological air in sea salt aerosols, which are swept from the ocean Analysis and Synthesis, it’s the first study to compare the into the air by the wind. Chlorine gas also is used to treat top-down versus bottom-up human influences on the food water in swimming pools, cooling towers and municipal chain of the kelp forest ecosystems. Kelp are giant algae water. Chlorine atoms react rapidly with hydrocarbons and that reach up to 120 feet in height and support diverse nitrogen oxides from automobile and power plant emissions, ecosytems.