A Report on Discoveries and Achievements at the University of California
Volume 5, Number 4, January 1997
The following is a glimpse of some recent achievements by the faculty, students and staff of the University of California
Physical Fellows . . . Eighteen UC researchers were selected as fellows of the American Physical Society, an organization of more than 41,000 physicists worldwide. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory had five; UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory had two each; and UC Berkeley, UC Riverside and UC San Diego had one each.
Presidential Advisors . . . UC Berkeley business professor Janet Yellen was appointed by President Clinton as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors. Currently, she serves as governor of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C. Yellen's appointment must be confirmed by Congress . . . Berkeley economist Laura D'Andrea Tyson, who served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors and then as head of the National Economic Council, is stepping down as President Clinton's top economic advisor. Tyson will return to teaching at Berkeley after serving for four years in Washington.
Board Appointment . . . Dr. Cornelius Hopper, UC vice president for Health Affairs, was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Association of Academic Health Centers, an organization of more than 100 academic health complexes in the United States and Canada. The organization seeks to influence public dialogue on health policy issues, advance education for health professionals, promote research and enhance patient care.
Trade Center . . . With $207 billion in international trade in 1995, Los Angeles has surpassed New York as the nation's leading trade center, according to a study by political scientist Steven P. Erie of UC San Diego. Erie says almost two-thirds of California's international trade now passes through L.A.'s air and sea ports, making the region the de facto American gateway for Pacific Rim trade. However, the region could become a victim of its own success, with unprecedented congestion threatening its airports, rail and highway systems.
Fine Wine . . . California's $9 billion wine industry continues to expand, accounting for 75 percent of all wine — both foreign and domestic — consumed in the United States, according to Robert Smiley, dean of the Graduate School of Management at UC Davis. However, he warns that price increases, increased foreign wine imports and grape shortages could have a negative impact on wine sales over the next three years.
Surf's Up, Doc . . . The U.S. Surfing Federation — the governing
body spearheading the U.S. effort to make surfing an Olympic event at the
summer games in Sydney, Australia, in the year 2000 — named UC San Diego
physician Mark Bracker as chair of its medical committee and head physician
for the U.S. National Team. A veteran surfer, Bracker directs UCSD's sports
medicine residency and fellowship programs.
Smarter Smokers? . . . Cognitive scientist Jaime Pineda of UC San Diego found that cigarette smokers experience increased learning, memory and attention after smoking. Pineda thinks the reason may be the nicotine in cigarettes, which causes an increase in the number of acetylcholine receptors present in the brain, which in turn increases the smoker's receptivity and alertness. Pineda stressed that he's strongly opposed to smoking, and that his findings should not be interpreted as providing a reason for people to smoke.
One from Column A . . . A new program at UC San Francisco promises to combine traditional Asian medicine, lifestyle and nutritional changes and other "alternative" treatments with the latest laboratory breakthroughs in a search for the most effective therapies. The UCSF Program In Integrative Medicine will incorporate all promising approaches — from yoga, meditation, herbal medicine and other non-conventional therapies to the most recent discoveries about the disease process at the molecular level — into a single, rigorous search for the best treatments for breast cancer, heart disease and other illnesses.
Support for Supports . . . Workers who wear back supports can reduce their risk of low-back injuries by about one-third, according to a team of researchers from UCLA. The team studied the workplace injury history of 36,000 workers at The Home Depot, a national chain of home improvement stores, over a six-year period and found that low-back injuries fell by about one-third after the company imposed a consistent policy on back support use.
HIV Notes . . . UCLA pathologist Jonathan Braun led a study that uncovered a new immune trait that may promote resistance to HIV infection. The researchers found that homosexual men who had high levels of an antibody called VH3 were relatively resistant to HIV infection by sexual contact. The research may have implications for the development of a vaccine to prevent HIV transmission . . . AIDS patients who took daily injections of human growth hormone gained a significantly greater amount of weight, particularly lean body mass, than patients on placebo, according to a multi-center trial led by endocrinologist Morris Schambelan of UC San Francisco. The results demonstrate that growth hormone can help AIDS patients with wasting — a common AIDS complication — to gain lean tissue and lose fat.
At Risk In the Community . . . Mentally retarded adults who live in community settings have a 72 percent higher mortality risk than those living in state-run institutions, and children with severe developmental disabilities living at home or in small-group homes have a 25 percent higher mortality rate than those in institutions, according to two separate UC Riverside studies. The conclusions come as many states are moving patients from institutions to communities.
Antioxidants? Not So Fast . . . Lung cells damaged by asbestos may become more prone to cancer when treated with antioxidants, which traditionally have been thought to prevent cancer, according to a study led by UC San Francisco professor of medicine Courtney Broaddus. In the laboratory, human and rabbit cells self-destruct when exposed to asbestos. When the process is inhibited with antioxidants, the cells survive, but in a form that may make them more prone to cancer. Broaddus said the results may shed light on recent clinical trials that have suggested that large doses of antioxidants as a cancer prevention therapy may do more harm than good.
Zinc and Bone Density . . . Eating foods rich in zinc during teen-age years may be a key to protecting women from osteoporosis later in life, says a study by Mari Golub, adjunct professor of internal medicine at UC Davis. Moderate zinc deficiencies during growth spurts of female rhesus monkeys resulted in slower skeletal growth and less bone density immediately after puberty compared to control monkeys. Golub points out that peak bone mass is attained by women during adolescence, and increase in bone density during this time can be directly related to the occurrence of osteoporosis later in life.
Wine vs. Cancer . . . Components of wine known as polyphenols, thought to help protect against heart disease, now appear to delay the onset of cancer — at least in mice. In a newly published study, a team of UC Davis researchers fed wine solids, known to be high in polyphenols, to laboratory mice that were predisposed to develop cancerous tumors. The mice developed tumors at a rate 40 percent slower than mice who received no wine solids.
Resistant Bugs . . . A dangerous rise in common bacteria that
are resistant to every known antibiotic was documented in a large New York
hospital by epidemiologist and microbiologist Lee Riley of UC Berkeley.
Riley's study suggests that drug-resistant enterococci, which cause blood
infections, are rapidly becoming permanent residents in an increasing number
of hospitals in the United States. While enterococci are a serious hazard
in themselves, Riley says the real danger is that staphylococcus, the most
common hospital bacteria of all, will also become resistant to every known
antibiotic. Riley says that would be a major national disaster resulting
in many deaths.
Lunar Prospecting . . . Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists created three instruments for the proposed Lunar Prospector unmanned mission to the moon. The instruments will map minerals on the lunar surface, catch signs of seismic activity and hunt for the presence of hidden water. If Prospector finds a large enough supply of water, human colonization of the moon may be feasible.
Talk This Way . . . A key area of the brain that controls the mouth, tongue, larynx and other intricate movements necessary for speech was identified for the first time by UC Davis neuropsychologist Nina Dronkers. In a study of 25 stroke patients, Dronkers found that damage to a region known as the insula seems to be the key to motor control necessary for words and sentences. Up to now, not much has been known about the insula or what it does.
Virtual Oil Fields . . . Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Cray Research and Amoco Oil Co. developed computer software that makes it possible to simulate how oil and gas flow through large underground oil fields — giving petroleum producers a new way to develop economical oil recovery strategies. The software is 100 times faster than currently available simulators, which are too slow to model the huge oil fields that are the source of almost 60 percent of crude oil worldwide.
Hand-held Lab . . . A team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
scientists designed a portable DNA analysis system that will allow military
specialists to quickly identify human remains in the field, test food and
water for contamination in remote locations and identify dangerous bacteria
on the battlefield. The hand-held unit operates on 1.5 watts of power —
compared to the laboratory-sized version that consumes 1,000 watts — and
the whole system fits in a small suitcase.
Keeping Pure . . . Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers developed a new technique for detecting impurities in solutions down to the parts-per-trillion level. The technique, called bubble chamber spectroscopy, detects chemicals in solution by the way they absorb laser light. The new technology can be used in environmental monitoring, pharmaceutical manufacturing and controlling the quality of solvents used in the semiconductor industry.
Inside Antibiotics . . . A UC Santa Cruz team led by biochemist Joseph Puglisi solved for the first time the mechanics of how a common class of antibiotics disables bacteria: by interfering with bacterial ribosomes, the factories in every cell that make the proteins an organism needs to survive. The research sheds light on how the ribosome works, why antibiotics kill bacteria but not people and how some bacteria develop resistance to drugs.
Prenatal Diagnosis . . . UC San Francisco researchers led by
hematologist Yuet Wai Kan devised a new non-invasive method of diagnosing
genetic disorders prenatally. The technique involves analyzing immature
fetal red blood cells taken from the mother's blood. Potentially, the new
method could be used to diagnose a broad range of gene disorders such as
cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs disease.
Local Governments and Open Space . . . UC Santa Cruz environmental studies professor Daniel Press is starting a five-year study of the role that local governments play in the preservation of open space in California. Part of the study will explore an early finding that each of California's counties show a remarkably persistent pattern of either approving or rejecting environmental protection measures. Press believes that local governments will need to play a larger role in land conservation as federal and state expenditures decline.
Exotic Invasion . . . Geologists Doris Sloan and Andrew N. Cohen
of UC Berkeley and Mary McGann of the U.S. Geological Survey documented
the first known invasion of an exotic marine microorganism into U.S. coastal
waters. Trochammina hadai, a microscopic animal with a calcium carbonate
shell, apparently hitched a ride about 10 years ago in a Japanese vessel
and is now ubiquitous around San Francisco Bay. The researchers say the
invasion raises questions about the extent to which other microorganisms
are invading the world's ports and estuaries. Exotic, or non-native, organisms
can wreak havoc in native ecosystems.
Women on Board . . . Corporate boards with women directors report that they have significantly more influence over top management decisions than those without female directors, according to Susan Sassalos, UC Riverside assistant professor of organizational behavior. While the study did not show whether the presence of women made the boards more influential, the results suggest that the overall power of a board of directors is enhanced by the inclusion of female directors, said Sassalos.
Californians Go Home . . . Oregonians consider the typical Californian to be competitive, impersonal, superficial, unconcerned about the environment and wasteful, according to a survey by UC Riverside graduate student Glenn Tsunokai, who is exploring the extent of intolerance towards Californians among residents of Oregon. More than two-thirds of Oregonians surveyed think the migration of Californians to their state will bring negative changes. In comparison, Oregonians view themselves as neighborly, law-abiding, considerate, trustworthy, cooperative and charitable.
Under-compensated? . . . Injured workers in California have a
hard time obtaining basic information from the state compensation system,
let alone getting the benefits they're entitled to, according to a new
report by UC Berkeley occupational health researchers Juliann Sum and Laura
Stock. Despite state labor code regulations, injured workers said they
felt shut out, pushed aside and kept in the dark about the claims process.
The researchers are involved in a project to design and test prototype
educational materials about the workers' compensation system.
Joint Genome Effort . . . The Department of Energy formed a Joint Genome Institute, uniting the efforts of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory, to enable researchers at those institutions to contribute to the Human Genome Project more effectively and efficiently. Livermore biologist Elbert Branscomb will lead the institute as scientific director. The institute's main objective is to sequence approximately 1.2 billion base pairs of human DNA — roughly 40 percent of the total — by 2005.
Bilingual Kids . . . UC Santa Cruz psychologist Barry McLaughlin received a $900,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education for a three-year study of the vocabulary development of bilingual children. McLaughlin will work with colleagues from Boston and Washington, D.C. to develop a program for enhancing the vocabulary and literacy of elementary school children whose first language is not English.
Computers In Schools . . . Henry Becker, a sociologist at UC Irvine, received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a national study on how computer technology is hastening instructional reform in America's elementary and secondary schools. Becker's partner for the project is Ronald Anderson, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota.
Deep Research . . . A multi-institutional team led by UC Berkeley
geologist Don DePaolo received a $10.3 million grant from the National
Science Foundation to study the evolution of Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano.
The team will drill 14,500 feet deep into the base of the volcano, boring
through a million years worth of lava deposits in order to learn more about
how volcanos form and operate.
Kudos
Glaser Award . . . Los Alamos National Laboratory biologist Bette Korber won the prestigious Elizabeth Glaser Scientist Award for conducting research on HIV/AIDS infection among children. The grant, awarded by the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, provides $650,000 for five years of research.
Dual Awards . . . Medical researcher Christine Hartmann-Siantar of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory received two awards for her work to improve radiation therapy for cancer patients: the Energy Research Young Independent Scientist Award from the Department of Energy and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Hartmann-Siantar is leading a team of physicists, engineers and computer scientists to develop PEREGRINE, a computer modeling system that will better calculate radiation treatment plans, which could lead to higher cure rates.
Chromosoma Prize . . . Biologist Harald Biessmann of UC Irvine was awarded the annual Chromosoma Prize for 1996 by the editors for the journal Chromosoma. Biessmann was recognized for advancing knowledge of molecular and genetic biology by writing or co-authoring four research papers published in the journal since 1993.
Okawa Prize . . . The Tokyo-based Okawa Foundation for Information
and Telecommunications awarded the prestigious Okawa Prize for 1996 to
Lotfi A. Zadeh, UC Berkeley professor emeritus of electrical engineering
and computer sciences. The prize is worth about $100,000.
Compiled by Communications, Office of the President, steve.tokar@ucop.edu