A Report on Discoveries and Achievements at the University of California
Volume 4, Number 2, September 1995
The following is a glimpse of some recent achievements by the faculty, students and staff of the University of California.
Concealed Evidence . . . According to UC San Francisco professor of medicine Stanton Glantz, the tobacco industry concealed evidence for more than 30 years that nicotine is addictive and that tobacco smoke causes cancer. Glantz and his fellow researchers analyzed nearly 8,000 pages of confidential tobacco industry documents, including 4,000 pages sent to Glantz anonymously in 1994 . . . Even in very low doses , one to nine cigarettes a day , cigarette smoking substantially interferes with the ability of women to become pregnant, according to a study by public health researchers Ethel Alderete, Brenda Eskenazi and Robert Sholtz of UC Berkeley. The researchers found that smoking less than half a pack a day led to a 50 percent reduction in fertility at the end of one year.
Pew Scholar . . . Paul Dayton, professor of oceanography at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, was one of only 11 scientists named as a 1995 Pew Scholar in Conservation and the Environment by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Dayton will receive $150,000 over the next three years "to advance projects aimed at conserving biological diversity around the globe."
Small but Powerful . . . Small farms produce just 10 percent of California's food and other crops but play an important part in the state's agricultural industry, according to a report by the UC Davis Small Farm Center. Small farms sell more than $1 billion of food and fiber annually, pay 38 percent of agricultural property taxes, and own more than half of the industry's tractors and pickups. In addition, they frequently ring urban areas, providing a buffer between residential communities and large-scale corporate farms, plus meet consumer demand for specialty fruit and vegetables.
Crime and Punishment . . . Building prisons has not reduced violent
crime, according to a study by UC Berkeley law professor Franklin
Zimring. While burglary and larceny have declined since 1980, there
was no indication that incarceration prevented violent crimes such as homicide,
assault and rape. Zimring called the results discouraging in light of California's
continued plans to build more prisons.
No Small Achievement . . . Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory biomedical scientists were members of two national teams of researchers that discovered the genetic defects that cause two forms of dwarfism. Researchers hope the discovery will lead to a better understanding of joint and bone disorders associated with dwarfism, such as osteoarthritis, and better ways to treat them.
Driven to Disease . . . A study by UC San Francisco psychologist Lillian Cartwright showed that successful, driven women are as prone to stress-related disease as their male counterparts. Cartwright, in a 30-year study of women doctors, found that women from poor economic backgrounds, those who had difficulty organizing time and those who had difficulty forging supportive social bonds were especially likely to be in poor health at mid-life.
Cleaner Blood . . . Before chemotherapy for bone marrow cancer, blood is often drawn from a patient, purified, then reinfused after the therapy kills diseased bone marrow cells. The reinfused blood leads to growth of new healthy bone marrow. A new blood purification technique developed at UCLA by medical researchers James Berenson, Gary Schiller and Robert Vescio removes many more cancerous cells than did previous techniques, so patients receive much cleaner blood than before. The cleaner the blood, the less likely the reoccurrence of cancer.
Transplant Advance . . . A new agent that reduces organ rejection by nearly 50 percent, tested in clinical trials at UC San Francisco, now is available for kidney transplant patients. The immunosuppressant drug, known by the acronym HAT, is the first transplant drug in 12 years that significantly reduces the failure rate of kidney transplants.
Parkinson's Clue . . . UC San Diego researchers Clifford Shults and Richard Haas found that newly diagnosed Parkinson's disease patients who were not yet seriously debilitated and had not begun drug treatment had reduced activity of an enzyme involved in generation of energy by the mitochondria, the "power plants" of cells. The research suggests that abnormal mitochondrial function may be a factor in the death of adult brain cells, which is part of the degenerative process of Parkinson's disease. The finding may help develop improved treatments for the disease.
Deadly Bond . . . A previously undiscovered chemical bond between human antibodies and the hormone prolactin plays an important role in the growth of cancer cells in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, according to a study by UC Riverside biomedical scientist Ameae Walker. The finding points to possible treatments for the disease, which currently has a poor prognosis.
Spinal Hope . . . UCLA medical researchers led by Rick Delamarter developed an experimental model showing that recovery from a spinal cord injury can be improved if pressure on the spinal cord is removed immediately after the injury. The study showed evidence of a critical "window of opportunity" during which treatment can promote and improve neurological recovery.
Grim Statistic . . . It's extremely difficult to successfully revive young children under age two who suffer cardiac arrest outside the hospital, according to pediatrician Ronald Dieckmann of UC San Francisco. Dieckmann found only a 3 percent survival rate among such children, and found the survivors suffer severe disability such as quadriplegia and mental retardation.
HIV Talk . . . A survey of adolescents led by UC San Diego physician Lawrence Friedman reveals that most teenagers prefer to receive HIV information and counseling from their physicians rather than other sources such as parents or school counselors. Friedman noted that teens expect doctors to initiate discussions about HIV-related risk behaviors . . . Jay Levy, a UC San Francisco physician who was among the first to identify the HIV virus as the cause of AIDS, says that trying to develop drugs that prevent HIV from infecting cells is the wrong strategy. Levy says AIDS research should focus instead on treatments that eliminate the infected cells that serve as reservoirs for HIV production in the body.
Gene Clone Team . . . UCLA pathologist Richard Gatti
was on the international team that cloned the gene that causes ataxia-telangiectasia,
a progressive neurologic disease that strikes young children, weakening
the lungs and damaging vision. Thanks to the research, screening for at-risk
families could be available within a year.
DEVELOPMENTS AND DISCOVERIES
That's Information . . . A new information storage technique invented by chemist Bruce Lamartine and engineer Roger Stutz at Los Alamos National Laboratory could fit four sets of encyclopedias on an inch-long pin. The High-Density Read-Only memory, which holds about 180 times more information than a conventional CD-ROM, should find immediate use in archival storage and in supercomputing, with many other potential applications.
Cool New Invention . . . A new refrigeration system designed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory could cut costs and protect the environment. The system uses environmentally friendly helium as a coolant, rather than environmentally damaging chlorofluorocarbons, and is smaller and uses less power than current designs. It might be used in autos and refrigerators.
Telephone Game . . . The prototype of a new opto-electric modulator, a device that can convert the equivalent of 15 million simultaneous phone conversations from electronic to optical form for transmission on optic fiber cable, was developed by a joint UCLA-University of Southern California research team. The device could triple the carrying capacity of long-distance telephone and data lines.
Lagoon Life . . . Stanley Miller, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UC San Diego, found that ingredients needed to create the first genetic material on earth could have been formed in primitive evaporating lagoons or in pools on drying beaches. The experiments, described as so simple they might have been performed in freshman chemistry, reinforce the theory that something akin to the nucleic acid RNA created the precursors to living organisms, and that RNA was the first genetic material , not DNA, the genetic material of all life today.
Orbiting Crystals . . . A crystallization experiment designed
by Alexander McPherson, a professor of biochemistry at UC Riverside,
is underway on the Russian space station Mir. The experiment's goal is
to crystallize liquid protein samples in order to learn about their molecular
architecture. Unlike on earth, crystals form without flaw in the weightless
environment of space.
Testing, Testing . . . A new technique invented by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory allows scientists to quicken the rate at which they create and test experimental compounds from about one compound a day to as many as 10,000. The researchers found a way to deposit thousands of distinct combinations of metal-oxide molecules onto an area the size of a checkerboard square, allowing the creation of miniature "libraries" of experimental compounds that can be tested quickly and efficiently. The new method has already been used to create libraries of high-temperature superconductors.
Dwarves in Space . . . Astronomers from UC Berkeley and
San Francisco State University report the first confirmed sighting of a
brown dwarf , a dim object larger than a planet but smaller than a star.
The discovery is significant because it's been speculated that brown dwarfs
make up part of the missing mass of the universe, which astronomers calculate
is there but can't find.
Finding Fault . . . Seismologist Justin Revenaugh of UC Santa Cruz devised a new method to study a bend in the southern San Andreas Fault. The method reveals that the Pacific continental plate, on one side of the fault, is torn apart as it dives below the earth's crust because of stresses created by the bend in the fault. The collision between the Pacific and North American plates has created the Transverse Ranges, dramatic mountains that run east to west across southern California.
A Less Productive Planet . . . Energy and resources expert Gretchen Daily of UC Berkeley estimated that nearly half the world's vegetated land has suffered a drop in agricultural productivity in the past 50 years as a result of human activity. The main culprits are destructive agricultural practices , such as slash-and-burn farming , and deforestation. Daily estimates that overall, the planet has lost 10 percent of its total productive value.
Waspish Solution . . . A wasp native to Australia and tested in California by UC Berkeley entomologist Donald Dahlsten proved to be a simple, safe and permanent biological control for the eugenia psyllid, a louse which disfigures the eugenia, a widely planted ornamental. Before the wasp was test-released in 1992, millions of dollars in chemicals had been used to combat the pest unsuccessfully
Bad News, Good News at Tahoe . . . The last 30 years of urbanization around Lake Tahoe have caused as much lake sedimentation as the clear-cut logging of the late 1800s, according to a report by graduate student Alan Heyvaert and colleagues at the UC Davis Lake Tahoe Research Group. The good news is that the lake recovered its famous clarity in the early 1900s after the loggers left, and that the lake responds quickly to positive changes in the surrounding environment.
Bye-Bye Brazil . . . Brazil's Amazon rainforest is still gravely endangered in spite of legal reforms designed to protect it, according to UC Berkeley geographer Hilgard O'Reilly Sternberg, a native of Brazil. Threats include slash-and-burn agriculture, unrestricted logging and gold mining. Sternberg says the situation will not improve without land reform to encourage ecologically sound use of the forest.
Unwelcome Visitor . . . Marine biologist David Garrison and his fellow researchers at UC Santa Cruz found that a toxic species of algae unknown on the West Coast until 1991 is a regular inhabitant of the Monterey Bay. The algae produce a natural poison, domoic acid, that can spread throughout the food chain and potentially to human consumers of seafood. Domoic acid caused hundreds of bird deaths in Monterey Bay in 1991.
Deer, Deer . . . The first study of urban deer in California
is underway by Dale McCullough, professor of wildlife biology and
management at UC Berkeley. The study, prompted by the rising number
of black-tailed deer in California coastal communities, will look at their
ecology, their effect on human habitat, and how homeowners, agencies and
biologists should respond.
Domestic Effect . . . State laws that require doctors and hospitals to report domestic violence cases to police may harm patients by putting them at risk of retaliation, discouraging them from seeking medical care and violating their confidentiality and autonomy, according to a report co-written by Dean Schillinger, a UC San Francisco professor of medicine. Schillinger believes physicians should work with legislators in reforming the laws to be more responsive to patients' needs and to allow patients to decide if their cases are reported.
TV Says, "Eat Me" . . . In a study of children's programming on seven San Diego TV stations, UC San Diego pediatrician Howard Taras may have discovered a clue to the growing problem of obesity in children. Taras found that 91 percent of the food advertised during children's shows promoted products high in fat, salt and sugar. The programming contained an average of 21 commercials per hour, and 47 percent of the ads were related to food.
Sign Language . . . Gestures that babies make , holding their noses, opening their hands like a book or blowing air , may actually be a form of sign language, according to UC Davis psychologist Linda Acredolo. A study done in collaboration with professor Susan Goodwyn of California State University, Stanislaus, found that parents can enrich communication between themselves and their babies by encouraging their children to "talk" through gesture.
Electric Avenue . . . A study co-written by UC Davis transportation
researchers Tom Turrentine and Ken Kurani identified consumers
as a significant market for electric cars. Previous analysts assumed most
first-generation electric vehicles would be bought for government and corporate
fleets. The study says existing technology is good enough to start and
sustain a market for electric vehicles at least through the turn of the
century.
Granting an Education . . . UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine and UC San Diego were awarded grants from the U.S. Department of Education through a program called Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need. The grants will pay stipends, tuition and fees for students pursuing doctoral degrees in biology, chemistry, computer sciences, math or physics, with an emphasis on women and minorities. Santa Cruz received five of the 70 grants awarded this year; three went to Irvine and one to San Diego.
Heart of the Problem . . . UC San Francisco professor of medicine Mary Malloy will direct a $2.4 million study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, to discover previously unrecognized risk factors that lead to coronary artery disease in women. Contrary to popular belief, at least as many women as men die each year from heart disease and stroke due to clogging of the arteries.
Viral Investigator . . . UC Santa Barbara chemistLori A. Kohlstaedt won two grants to continue her research in the mysteries of how viruses replicate , work that has potential applications in understanding and treating cancer and viral-linked diseases like AIDS. Kohlstaedt received $450,000 from the National Science Foundation and $90,500 from the American Cancer Society.
Grass to Gas . . A pilot project at UC Riverside to turn
sawdust, grass clippings and other biological waste into a cleaner-burning
fuel for automobiles and buses received more than $1 million from the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies. The aim of the project,
in collaboration with Acurex Environmental Corp., is to demonstrate and
evaluate the conversion of biomass to methanol.
Peruvian Honor . . . Anthropologist Christopher Donnan of UCLA received Peru's Great Cross of the Order of Merit for Distinguished Services. The award, the highest Peruvian honor reserved for foreigners, is comparable to an honorary knighthood in Great Britain. Donnan was recognized for his 25 years of archaeological research into the Moche culture of ancient Peru.
R&D 100 . . . Los Alamos National Laboratory won six
1995 R&D 100 Awards from R&D Magazine, more than any other institution.
The award honors the year's most significant products, materials, processes,
software or systems with commercial promise. Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory won five of the prestigious awards.
Compiled by Communications Services, Office of the President, steve.tokar@ucop.edu