A Report on Discoveries and Achievements at the University of California
Volume 7, Number 3, November 1998

The following is a glimpse of some recent achievements by the faculty, students and staff of the University of California.

In The News

Cicerone Honored . . . One of the richest prizes in American science – the $250,000 Bower Award – will go to UC Irvine Chancellor Ralph Cicerone for his research on "greenhouse" gases and ozone depletion. Cicerone will receive the award this spring from the Franklin Institute, a Philadelphia-based private foundation.

Humanitarian Award to Orbach . . . UC Riverside Chancellor Raymond L. Orbach received the Whitney M. Young Humanitarian Award from the Urban League of Riverside/San Bernardino Counties in recognition of his outreach efforts to enhance student diversity. The award was presented at the Urban League’s Ninth Annual Equal Opportunity Awards Gala in October.

Preuss School Moves Ahead . . . As UC San Diego nears its funding goal for The Preuss Model School – the first university-affiliated charter school in California – preparations are under way to enroll the first low-income, high-potential students in the fall of 1999. Included in the preparations is the recruitment of the school’s principal.

Advisor to UN . . . Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory physicist David Banner will advise the United National special commission on Iraq. He began the one-year appointment Oct. 19 and will provide technical expertise aimed at preventing proliferation of Iraqi nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.

New Appointments . . . Ralph J. Hexter, an innovative scholar of classical and medieval literature, has been appointed dean of humanities at UC Berkeley. He took over from Anthony Newcomb, professor of music, who had served since 1990. At 45, Hexter is 10 years younger than most deans and had already served as chairman of the department of comparative literature – and now dean of humanities – within three years of his arrival on campus in 1996. . . in other UC Berkeley appointments, Gerald Lowell has been appointed university librarian, moving from his post as university librarian at UC San Diego.

New Pacific Rim Dean . . . Peter Timmer has joined UC San Diego as the new dean of the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. Timmer was previously at Harvard, where he was a professor on four different faculties. He is widely recognized as one of the most prominent economists studying Indonesia.

Health and Nutrition

Radiosurgery Advance . . . In the most significant advance in radiosurgery technology in a decade, physicians at UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center have opened the nation’s first facility offering a shaped-beam surgery designed to treat brain tumors. Shaped-beam surgery uses computer-generated images that exactly mirror the shape of a patient’s tumor. Each beam of radiation specifically targets and – unlike conventional beam radiation – treats diseased tissue while leaving nearby healthy tissue unharmed.

Antonio De Salles, an associate professor in UCLA’s division of neurosurgery, is chief of stereotactic surgery.

Eat to Win . . . In the war against cancer, diet may be the best, and least-expensive arsenal, according to UC Santa Barbara researcher J. Robert Hatherill. In a new book, Eat to Beat Cancer, Hatherill discusses what to eat and what not to eat to help avoid cancer. Among the helpful foods are garlic, tomatoes, cauliflower and citrus fruits, which he says contain natural cancer-fighting agents.

Prostate Cancer Mystery . . . Compared to other men, African American males stand a much higher chance of dying from prostate cancer even when they are diagnosed at similar stages of the disease and have access to the same care, say UC Berkeley researchers. Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among men in the U.S. William A. Satariano was principal investigator.

Stroke Risk . . . The estimated 18 million Americans who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea are at nearly 10 times the risk of stroke, according to a Veterans Affairs Medical Center/UCLA School of Dentistry study, authored by Arthur H. Friedlander.

Coffee Beans and AIDS . . . Researchers at UC Irvine have found a possible new weapon against AIDS: a chemical extracted from green coffee beans. Researchers Edward Robinson and Peter King added chicoric acid, extracted from coffee beans, to cells that were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Chicoric acid appeared to halt the actions of a key enzyme, HIV integrase, which helps HIV infect cells. The chemical is identical to substances in medicinal plants used by Bolivian shamans for 1,500 years.

Developments and Discoveries

Monstrous Black Hole . . . A monstrous black hole resides at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, with a mass more than two million times that of our sun, reports UCLA astronomer Andrea Ghez. The question of what lies at the center of our galaxy, 24,000 light years away, has been the subject of a raging debate for more than a quarter-century. Scientists have suspected that the galactic center contains either a single "supermassive" black hole or a cluster of millions of smaller stellar remnants.

Clues for Contraceptives . . . A protein found on the surface of the sperm of all mammals appears crucial for the union of the sperm and egg, as well as for movement of the sperm into the animal’s oviduct, according to researchers at UC Davis. The research took place in the laboratory of Diana Myles and Paul Primakoff and could lead to new male contraceptive drugs or vaccines as well as to treatments for male infertility.

Shadowy Secrets Revealed . . . Some of the more shadowy secrets of biology may soon be illuminated through the use of a new type of fluorescent probe developed by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley. The joint research team led by Paul Alivisatos and Shimon Weiss has announced the development of nanometer-sized crystals of semiconductors that can be used as fluorescent probes for the study of biological materials. They hint at the possibility of observing changes in living cells over a period of time.

Rewriting Evolutionary History . . . UC Riverside paleobiologist Mary Droser and colleagues have found fossils of the oldest known type of complex animals in Cambrian sediments, shedding light on one of the great controversies in animal evolution – why these ancient, soft-bodied marine animals seemed to disappear from the fossil record at the end of the Precambrian era. Leading theories held that either they suffered a mass extinction at the dawning of the Cambrian era 545 million years ago or changing environmental conditions prevented their preservation in the later fossil record. Droser’s find supports the latter theory.

The Cutting Edge

Mach 10 Travel? . . . A design for a hypersonic aircraft that could fly between any two points on the globe in less than two hours has been developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory aerospace engineer Preston Carter. The aircraft design – dubbed HyperSoar – could fly at approximately 6,700 mph (Mach 10). A HyperSoar aircraft would ascend to approximately 130,000 feet, turn off its engines and coast back to the surface of the atmosphere. There, it would again fire its air-breathing engines and skip back into space, repeating the process until it reached its destination. (Related story in Looking to the Future.)

Breast Cancer Breakthrough . . . The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the breakthrough breast cancer drug Herceptin in September. The drug is the first in an expected wave of new therapies that will attempt to beat back cancer by attacking the disease at its genetic roots. UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center and Genentech Inc., a South San Francisco-based biotechnology firm, jointly developed Herceptin.

Who Needs Flowers? . . . UC Davis biologists have brought a seed-building gene to life in a plant’s leaves instead of its blossoms, a feat that could lead to valuable innovations in food crops. Researchers in the laboratory of UC Davis plant biologist John Harada and collaborators at UC Berkeley and UCLA first isolated LEC1, a gene believed to be key to seed development. Then they engineered plants that would put the gene to work much earlier than usual in the plant’s life cycle. One result: Some leaf surfaces sprouted tiny clusters of glove-shaped, embryonic tissue.

Marijuana Mimic for Pain . . . Researchers at UC San Francisco have shown in rats that a synthetic drug that mimics the principal active ingredient in marijuana has an effect similar to that of morphine on an area of the brain that modulates pain. The finding raises the possibility that marijuana-like drugs could be used to treat pain, says the lead author of the study, Ian Meng.

Keeping Secrets . . . Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have achieved a significant advance in demonstrating an unbreakable encryption scheme for transmitting secure communications to and from satellites. Based on randomly generated characteristics of individual photons, the scheme could make financial transactions or military communications impenetrable to attempts to crack them and capable of revealing attempts to eavesdrop on them.

Planet and Environment

The Gene That Conserves Water . . . Biologists at UC San Diego have identified a gene in plants that conserves water, allowing some plants to better withstand droughts. The study compared plants that possessed a mutated gene that regulates the opening and closing of microscopic holes in the plant’s leaves with plants that did not possess the gene. After two weeks of drought treatment, the plants without the gene yellowed and wilted while the plants with the mutated gene remained green and healthy.

MTBE-devouring Microbe . . . UC Davis researchers have discovered a unique microbe that consumes the potentially carcinogenic fuel additive MTBE (methyl tertiary-butyl ether) – completely degrading the chemical within a week. When the research team, led by Kate Scow isolated the microbe and inoculated it into soil, found that the microbe appeared to break down MTBE into harmless components so that it disappears from soil and water. The inoculation technique could help reverse contamination caused by the chemical.

Peregrine Comeback . . . In 1970, wildlife biologists knew of only two pairs of peregrine falcons nesting in California. Now, thanks to the work of the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group at UC Santa Cruz, there are approximately 150 nesting pairs and an estimated total population in the state of about 750 birds. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced plans to remove the peregrine falcon from the endangered species list. Brian Walton coordinates the research group.

Whales and the Ecosystem . . . With seals and sea lions in short supply in the North Pacific, killer whales are now feeding on sea otters, causing an abrupt decline in the otter population in western Alaska, according to researcher James Estes at UC Santa Cruz. The decline in sea otters has allowed their primary prey, sea urchins, to increase in number and strip coastal kelp forests over large areas.

Insights on Society

Stay, and Graduate . . . For California Latino teens, even one school change doubles their odds of dropping out, according to UC Santa Barbara researchers Katherine A. Larson, Russell W. Rumberger and graduate students Gregory J. Palardy, Robert K. Ream and Nina C. Schleicher. They found that among Latino secondary students, 89 percent of those who made no non-promotional school changes graduated from high school, compared to 63 percent who made one school change and 60 percent who made two or more.

Anti-Violence Programs Lack Evaluation . . . A review of 201 anti-violence programs across the United State has found that the vast majority do not have a formal evaluation process and that it is virtually impossible to determine which are cost-efficient. The study’s lead author is UC Riverside researcher Edgar Butler. Study results showed that two-thirds of the programs had no formal evaluation and only 20 percent investigated whether there was an actual reduction in violence among participants.

Genes and the Chumminess of Roundworms . . . Some roundworms dine alone, while others sup socially, and the reason for the variation, report UC San Francisco researchers, comes down to a single gene closely related to the neuropeptide Y receptor gene in humans. It has previously been implicated in controlling appetite. The researchers say their study offers the tantalizing suggestion, still in the realm of speculation, that some element of the roundworm gene has been conserved in higher species through evolution. But they add that the finding would not suggest a genetic explanation for why some partygoers nibble on their own and others cluster around the potato chips.

Fringe Benefits . . . Salary is a powerful employee motivator, but fringe benefits also are effective – and they cost less, says UC Irvine researcher Richard McKenzie. In their new book, "Managing Through Incentives," McKenzie and co-author Dwight Lee of the University of Georgia contend that how workers are paid is more important than how much. Fringe benefits such as health insurance, extended vacations, company cafeterias or "just being nice" are not gifts but earnings, they emphasize.

"Spit Tobacco" and Intervention . . . High school baseball players are nearly twice as likely to stop using chewing tobacco and snuff when dentists or dental hygienists, as well as their teammates, urge quitting, says a new UC San Francisco study. It found that 27 percent of "spit tobacco" users stopped using the potentially cancer-causing substances for at least one year when dental health professionals, with the help of teammates, intervened. About 14 percent of the athletes who received no intervention quit. The study tracked baseball players at 44 rural California high schools. Dental health professionals intervened at 22 of those schools. There was no intervention at the other 22.

Looking to the Future

Ice on Europa . . . Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists will develop and test critical components of an ice-penetrating radar that may be used on a future mission to the Jupiter moon Europa. The ice-penetrating radar would use a three-antenna array that sends millions of radar signals at different frequencies to map out the thickness of Europa’s ice surface and detect, if present, a subsurface Europan ocean.

High and Clean . . . UC Irvine scientists are studying how future technology might hurt our atmosphere – before the technology exists. For example, aircraft makers are considering a new generation of supersonic planes that would fly people in the stratosphere, crossing the Pacific in six hours. Researcher Michael Prather uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and computer simulations of the future atmosphere to see how much such airplanes’ emissions would pollute the air. (Related story in The Cutting Edge.)

Aging Insights . . . UC San Francisco researchers may have found an insight into the way in which genes regulate aging and life span in humans. They report that a gene already known to play an important role in controlling aging in roundworms does so not by acting within individual cells to control each cell’s fate, but by acting within certain cells to coordinate the aging process of the whole organism. The study indicates there is a mechanism that causes all of the cells in the animal to reach a consensus and that mechanism appears to be sparked into action by particular genes acting within certain types of cells. The senior author of the study is Cynthia Kenyon.

HERMES Inspects Bridges . . . The Federal Highway Administration now has HERMES – a trailer developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that houses 64 high-speed impulse radars and a computing system capable of translating data into a three-dimensional image of a bridge. With HERMES (High Performance Electromagnetic Roadway Mapping and Evaluation System), inspectors can drive over a bridge at 55 mph and get a picture of structural weaknesses without closing the bridge to traffic or tearing up sections of the road.

Kudos

A Lasker to Koshland . . . Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., a long-time researcher at UC Berkeley and former editor of Science magazine, has received the Albert Lasker Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science. The Lasker Awards are called "America’s Nobels." The award was presented in honor of Koshland’s lifelong contributions to the field of medical science.

Tahoe Work Recognized . . . UC Davis researcher Charles R. Goldman, whose work brought to light the need to stem Lake Tahoe’s continued degradation, has received the 1998 Albert Einstein World Award of Science. The prize carries a medal, diploma and $10,000 and is given by the Mexico City-based World Cultural Council. The council formed in 1982 and awarded its first Einstein prize in 1984.

Chang Wins Weitzman . . . Linda Chang, a neurologist at the Harbor-UCLA Research and Education Institute, is the winner of the 1998 Weitzman Award. She was honored for her contributions to understanding neurological disorders among HIV patients and for her developments into non-invasive studies to measure brain activity . . . Ronald Busuttil, a UCLA professor of surgery and chief of liver and pancreas transplantation, was elected president of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons.

Investing in Education

$1 Million for Scholarships . . . A third-generation Sacramentan has willed the bulk of her estate, valued at $1 million, for new scholarships at UC Davis. The late Alva M. Englund asked that half of the funds be used to establish the Alva M. Englund Scholarship in the English department and that the other half be used to create, in honor of her late husband, the Walter J. Englund Scholarship in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Englund worked for two decades in Sacramento city schools.

In Support of Diversity . . . The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has awarded UC Berkeley $1.6 million to continue its efforts to improve undergraduate biology education, in particular through the Biology Scholars Program. The program helps undergraduates from diverse social, cultural and economic backgrounds succeed in the biological sciences.

Shaping America . . . Artist LeRoy Neiman has given UCLA $1 million to create a center to study American society and culture. The research center will coordinate new advanced studies of the issues that shape and change America.

Compiled by University Relations. For more information, call (510) 987-9200 or look under "News & Facts" on the UC Office of the President Home Page: http://www.ucop.edu. Written by Charles McFadden, UCOP News & Communication, charles.mcfadden@ucop.edu.