A Report on Discoveries and Achievements at the University of California
Volume 7, Number 2, September 1998

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

In The News

Best In The West . . . All eight general UC campuses have been ranked within the top 26 public universities in the United States by U.S. News & World Report. UC Berkeley was ranked with the University of Virginia as the nation’s top research university. UCLA and UC Riverside ranked third and fourth nationally for ethnic diversity, UC Berkeley ranked sixth and UC Davis ranked 13^th. UCLA Medical Center ranks as the best hospital in the western United States for the ninth consecutive year, according to a separate U.S. News & World Report survey of 2,400 board-certified physicians across the nation.

UC’s Treasure Trove . . . Bruce Robertson, chair of the UC Santa Barbara art history department, and fellow art historian Mark Meadow are embarking on a two-year, $208,000 Getty Foundation grant to survey and link for the first time the UC system’s vast treasure trove of collections. The goal is to create an organizational system for all nine campus’s museums and collections and select representative samples for a related exhibition to open in fall 2001.

Pew Awards . . . Mia Tegner, research marine biologist at UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, is one of 10 international environmental scientists and policymakers to share research/action grants awarded by the Pew Scholars Program in Conservation and the Environment. Tegner will receive $150,000 "to develop an ecosystem approach for conservation of the collapsed abalone fishery in California." Douglas Kellogg of UC Santa Cruz has been named a 1998 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences. He will receive $200,000 over four years to support research into the factors that control the division of cells.

Greenwood Elected . . .UC Santa Cruz Chancellor M.R.C. Greenwood has been elected a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. Greenwood was elected by the academy’s Board of Trustees in recognition of her "many contributions to the advancement of science." Founded in 1853 to survey and study the vast resources of California and beyond, the California Academy of Sciences is the oldest scientific institution in the West.

More Guggenheims . . .UC Irvine faculty members Barbara K. Burgess and Jane O. Newman have won Guggenheim fellowships for 1998. Burgess will conduct research at Oxford University on long-range coupled proton-electron transfer. Newman will conduct research in Poland and Germany for a book that will address how the concept of Europe has come to be identified almost exclusively with Western European nations.

Hopper Appointed . . . Cornelius Hopper, systemwide Vice President for Health Affairs, has been appointed to the Samuel Merritt College Board of Regents. The Oakland college has been educating undergraduate and graduate students in the health sciences for 91 years.

Labs Win Again . . . For the second year in a row, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have taken seven awards in the annual R&D 100 awards competition for top industrial inventions. The lab’s seven-award take, in judging by the Chicago-area trade publication, equals its previous records set in 1987, 1988, and 1997. Other top winners included Los Alamos National Laboratory, with four awards.

Health and Nutrition

Who Gets Cancer? . . .UC Irvine researchers received three awards totaling $10 million from the National Cancer Institute to establish California’s only NCI Cancer Genetics Network Center and to develop and manage two national information research systems. The new network will consist of up to eight centers across the country, collaborating on an unprecedented scale to study how cancer is inherited. The UCI researchers, led by Hoda Anton-Culver, will link the entire network electronically by managing its Internet-based informatics system.

Extra-harmful Cholesterol . . . "Oxidized" cholesterol, a particularly harmful form of the fat common in western diets, including fast foods, could speed the clogging of arteries and increase the risk of heart disease, according to researchers at UC San Francisco and the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The principal investigator for the study was Ilona Staprans of the veterans’ center; co-investigators included Joseph Rapp and Kenneth Feingold of UCSF.

Lung Cancer . . . Researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center have begun an experimental treatment for advanced lung cancer designed to test a drug that cuts off the blood supply to tumors at a molecular level. The drug is an anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) antibody and operates as an angiogenesis inhibitor, the same family of drugs that received media attention recently after they apparently cured cancer in laboratory animals. Fairooz Kabbinavar is the study’s principal investigator.

Viral Protein . . . A small protein in HIV may explain how the virus cripples the immune system and why the immune cells of patients on combination drug therapy are slow to regenerate, says a new UCLA study. Irvin Chen, director of the UCLA AIDS Institute, and his associates determined that Viral Protein R (VPR), which is carried in the HIV virus, halts the growth of T-cells, the white blood cells that normally fight infection by dividing and then attacking foreign cells. Because VPR prevents T-cell duplication, it shuts down the body’s immune response against HIV.

Lyme Disease Vaccine . . . The FDA is reviewing a first-of-its-kind vaccine to prevent tick-borne Lyme disease. It was co-developed by UC Irvine’s Alan Barbour, a nationally recognized expert on infectious diseases who earlier isolated the cause of Lyme disease. The vaccine targets the most common form of infection in the United States.

Developments and Discoveries

Is Anyone Out There? . . . UC Berkeley researchers have completed the most sensitive sky survey ever conducted in search of intelligent signals from outer space. So far, there has been nothing that could be uniquely identified as an extraterrestrial signal, reports project leader Stuart Bowyer of the campus’ Space Sciences Laboratory. The survey, called SERENDIP III, (Search for Extraterrestrial Radio Emissions from Nearby Developed Intelligent Populations) employed a detector mounted on the world’s largest radio telescope, at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. The instrument analyzed 500 trillion signals in the last six years and recorded information on three billion of them.

Turning On Platelets . . . UC San Francisco researchers have identified a molecular mechanism that may play an important part in activating platelets, the blood cells that coagulate to stop bleeding, but also cause the clots leading to heart attack and stroke. While more work is needed, the study could provide a new avenue for developing drugs for preventing heart attack and stroke, says senior study author Shaun Coughlin.

Genetic Links . . . Our genetic makeup may predispose us to certain personality traits or patterns of behavior, a new UCLA study suggests. Variant forms of two key genes, the DRD2 and DRD4 dopamine receptor genes, may play a role in causing and maintaining certain aggressive, impulsive personality types and in reinforcing associated thrill-seeking behaviors, the researchers say. The study was led by Ernest Noble of the UCLA School of Medicine.

Trade Myths . . . In the first comprehensive analysis of the effects of foreign trade on any state, researchers at UC Berkeley have called into question some commonly held assumptions about California’s foreign trade. For instance, co-lead author Dwight Jaffee reports that in some cases, imports can generate a net gain in employment instead of increasing unemployment. They do that by increasing the market share of some imported products, causing California producers to expand their employment of service workers.

The Cutting Edge

Big Bang, With Strings . . . Supercomputers have enabled Julian Borrill of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to model, in striking detail, a possible state of the universe only a hundred billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. In 3-D computer movies created by Borrill and his colleague Kevin Campbell, objects called "semilocal strings" condense out of interacting quantum fields to form writhing tubes of energy. Some link with other tubes in space-spanning filaments. Some, like the Worm Ourobouros, join head to tail and devour themselves, ultimately popping out of existence. These images, redolent of alchemy but grounded in theoretical physics, may provide insight into the past and present structure of our universe.

The Doctor Is In . . . E-mail is ushering in a new era of accessibility and convenience in doctor-patient relationships. Joseph Scherger, chair of the Department of Family Medicine at UC Irvine Medical Center, lets his patients know they can communicate with him electronically with questions about their health, medical breakthroughs in the news and medications. And they’re taking him up on his offer. Scherger even receives the latest medical jokes from some of his patients.

Scientists Set Sights . . . A team led by UC Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists has been chosen by NASA to design the science instrumentation for the Next Generation Space Telescope. The telescope will peer back through space and time at previously unseen stars and galaxies formed at the beginning of time. The team is led by UC Berkeley’s James Graham and LLNL’s Charles Bennett. The space telescope is scheduled for launching sometime between 2006 and 2008. Other team members include LLNL astrophysicist Kem Cook and Ed Wishnow, who holds positions at LLNL and UC Berkeley.

A Smarter Computer . . . Two UC Irvine computer scientists have received a $2.2 million federal grant to create a computer so sophisticated that, among other possibilities, it will be able to simulate the billions of cellular functions of the human heart. That would enable doctors to more precisely diagnose and treat heart disease. Rajesh Gupta andAlexandru Nicolau have designed the computer on paper, and predict that it can be built within 10 years.

Planet and Environment

Motors Mean MTBE . . . Using Donner Lake in the Sierra Nevada as a laboratory, UC Davis scientists have found that summertime recreational boating is the primary source of MTBE in the lake’s water, and that the contamination most likely stems from engine exhaust, not spills. MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether) is a gasoline oxygenate additive classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a possible human carcinogen. Researchers, including John Reuter and Brant Allen of UC Davis’s Tahoe Research Group, found that 86 percent of the variation in the seasonal trend of total lake MTBE levels was explained by recreational boating. UC Riverside engineers in the lab of Marc Deshusses have meanwhile developed a biofilter that may lead to an effective and environmentally sound method of cleansing MTBE from groundwater.

It Does Windows . . . Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley have discovered serendipitously an inexpensive material that changes color on exposure to light. The material, which they were studying in an effort to improve the performance of an advanced rechargeable battery, may be useful in developing a next generation of energy-efficient windows that switch from transparent to opaque.

Warm Water Punch . . . Scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography report that the incidence of warm water events such as El Niños has increased significantly in the last two decades along the West Coast. The phenomenon has been superimposed upon a climatic "regime shift" over the eastern Pacific that began in 1977 when average sea surface temperatures increased by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Marine ecosystems along the western coast of the United States are hit by this one-two climatic punch that has scientists concerned about the welfare of many species of fish, sea birds and intertidal organisms.

Insights on Society

Mourning and Monsters . . . Americans wear black for mourning. Chinese wear white. Westerners think of dragons as monsters. Chinese honor them as symbols of God. Chinese civilization has often shown such polarities with the West, says UC Berkeley psychologist Kaiping Peng. His findings help explain why American cultures seem so contentious and Chinese cultures so passive when compared to each other. The Chinese could learn much from Western methods for determining scientific truth, while Americans could profit enormously from the Chinese tolerance for accepting contradictions in social and personal life, Peng contends.

Microsoft Suit Hurts . . . Enforcing antitrust laws against Microsoft has not helped the rest of the computer industry and in fact may have hurt, conclude UC Davis economists George Bittlingmayer and Thomas Hazlett. The U.S. Department of Justice claims that Microsoft’s dominant market position hampers the industry and harms consumers. The researchers studied the stock prices of 159 other computer companies from 1991 to 1997 and found their investors reacted negatively to news that antitrust enforcement actions were being brought against Microsoft and responded positively to news that antitrust actions were being withdrawn. Hazlett says the negative reaction to the antitrust efforts indicates that investors don’t believe such litigation benefits customers.

Health Insurance . . . Increasing number of Americans choose not to buy health insurance offered through their employer, helping to fuel the rising number of uninsured people nationwide, says a study by researchers from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick. Workers reject health coverage more often even though the number of companies offering their workers health insurance has actually increased, particularly among small companies, according to the study. Thomas Rice of UCLA’s School of Public Health led the research.

Not Just License Plates . . . California prison factories and farms account for more than $150 million in direct sales in the state annually, according to a report by an economist at UC Berkeley. Researcher George Goldman says products range from silk-screened clothing in Tehachapi to fine-ground optics in Vacaville. His report is the first comprehensive study of the economic impact of the California Prison Industry Authority, the largest prison work program in the U.S. The organization employs about 7,000 inmates in 23 prisons from Del Norte to San Diego counties.

Anti-immigration Sentiment Declining . . . Anti-immigration sentiment in inland Southern California has cooled significantly since 1996, perhaps due to an improved economy and a decrease in political rhetoric on the subject of immigration, according to a study by UC Riverside’s Max Neiman. Among the findings: in 1996, more than 60 percent of respondents felt that children of illegal immigrants should not be allowed to enroll in public schools; in 1998, 53 percent said they should be allowed to enroll.

IQ, Genes And The Environment . . . UCLA’s Patricia Greenfield and colleague Marion Sigman wrote chapters in "The Rising Curve," a new book that challenges the views stated in "The Bell Curve," a national best-seller that argued intelligence is hereditary and genetically determined. "The Rising Curve" contends that intelligence test performance has been rising worldwide for a century and environmental factors account for most of this increase. Greenfield links the worldwide rise in test performance with the widespread use of technology, the growth and improvement of formal education and increased urbanization.

Looking to the Future

Finding Anti-Matter . . . UC Irvine researchers Mark Mandelkern, Jonas Schultz and a team of fellow scientists report they have produced anti-matter atoms, or atomic anti-hydrogen. The idea of anti-matter is critical to physicists, and now that scientists may be able to accumulate anti-matter, they can finally compare anti-matter to ordinary matter and test the three symmetries of nature underlying a key law of physics known as the CPT theorem. If test results differ, Mandelkern says, our whole understanding of the way the world works is wrong.

Landmark Bridge . . . UC San Diego has been awarded $6 million from the Federal Highway Administration to build the world’s first advanced composites vehicular bridge, a technologically advanced structure that will set a new standard for bridge construction in California and throughout the United States. The landmark bridge, to be located on Interstate 5 between the UCSD Medical School campus and Thornton Hospital, is the culmination of years of defense technology research on advanced composite materials.

"Miscellaneous" Grows . . . Almost all growth in residential electricity consumption over the next two decades will come from the often neglected small appliances (the so-called "miscellaneous" end uses), if current trends continue, say researchers in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The scientists also found that consumers would save more than $1 billion yearly if manufacturers applied proven technologies to reducing the "leaking" component of miscellaneous electricity use.

Get That Crab . . . Scientists at UC Santa Barbara are studying a barnacle parasite called rhizocephalan as a possible natural way to control the European green crab, a voracious marine predator that has devastated East Coast fisheries and is beginning to threaten delicacies such as Dungeness crabs on the West Coast. Armand Kuris and Kevin Lafferty are examining rhizocephalans’ ability to block the crabs’ reproductive system.

Kudos

Underwater Acoustics Honor . . . Grant Deane, assistant research oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, is the winner of the 1997 A.B. Wood Medal and Prize from the United Kingdom’s Institute of Acoustics. Deane was awarded the medal for his work in sound propagation, which is the study of how sound travels through water. Deane studies the sound of breaking surf and its interaction with the environment to learn about physical processes in the surf zone.

Boyer Elected . . . Paul Boyer, Nobel laureate and UCLA professor emeritus of chemistry and biochemistry, has been elected to the American Philosophical Society, the country’s oldest learned society and a renowned international organization that promotes excellence and knowledge in the sciences and humanities.

Physicists Honored . . . Four physicists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have been honored by the American Physical Society with its 1998 Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research. Gilbert Collins, Peter Celliers, Luiz Da Silva and Robert Cauble were commended for experiments to measure the properties of hydrogen… LLNL’s Steve Payne has been awarded a 1998 Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award by Fusion Power Associates. He was cited for developing a next-generation fusion laser that uses laser diode arrays in place of flashlamps, laser crystals instead of glass and neasonic gas coolant.

Investing in Education

Model School . . . UC Regent Peter Preuss and his family have committed $5 million to the proposed UC San Diego Model School for disadvantaged sixth to 12^th graders. UCSD will seek approval from UC President Richard C. Atkinson to name the innovative educational venture "The Preuss School."

Fighting Killers . . . Tokyo-based Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. has made an $11 million grant to UC San Francisco to study heart disease and cancer. Approximately $7.5 million of the grant will be used to research the causes of heart disease at the Daiichi Research Center for the Study of Cardiovascular Disease at UCSF. An additional $3.5 million will establish the Daiichi Cancer Research Program at the UCSF Cancer Research Institute.

Natural Reserve Support . . . Six wildland sites administered by UC Santa Barbara are among those of the UC Natural Reserve System (NRS) to benefit from a private $4 million endowment established in June. The gift is from the Los Altos-based David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

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).