University News
The University of Chicago Receives Anonymous $100 Million Gift for Undergraduate Financial Aid
The University of Chicago has announced that an anonymous donor and College alumnus has given a $100 million gift, the largest in University history, to be used in the launch of a $400 million undergraduate student aid fundraising initiative at Chicago.
The $100 million gift, which is entirely expendable over 15 years, will establish Odyssey Scholarships, a program that will allow the University to reduce student loans among undergraduate students whose families demonstrate low or moderate income and high financial need. For those students whose annual family income is less than $60,000, the loans could be replaced entirely by grants, and for families whose income is between $60,000 and $75,000, the loans could be cut in half.
Odyssey Scholarships will go into effect in the fall of 2008 and provide assistance to all qualified students in the College. Almost 1,200 undergraduates, including international students, are expected to benefit from the program at a time — almost 25 percent of the entire College enrollment.
As part of Odyssey Scholarships, about 50 students who could benefit from a summer enrichment program to prepare them for their College experience will be invited to campus during the summer before their first year to spend eight weeks working with faculty. Those students will also be relieved of work-study during their first year in the College in order to help them engage more fully in their academic experience.
The $100 million also includes a component designed to challenge the University to raise an additional $300 million and to create incentive for other donors to contribute to endowment to support the program beyond the first 15 years of funding.
A central part of the College education is the Core curriculum, which Dean of the College John Boyer believes to be the heart of what makes the College experience so distinct.
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UCSB Receives $12.5 Million Gift from Virgil Elings and Betty Elings Wells to
Support Research and Innovation at the California NanoSystems Institute
irgil Elings and Betty Elings Wells have made a $12.5 million gift to UC Santa Barbara to support pioneering research at the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). In recognition of their recent gift, the new building that is home to the prestigious California Institute for Science and Innovation will be named in honor of Virgil Elings.
The CNSI is a multidisciplinary research partnership between UCLA and UC Santa Barbara established by the state in 2000 with the support of the state legislature and California industry. By exploring the power and potential of manipulating structures molecule-by-molecule, the CNSI is on its way to creating revolutionary new materials, devices, and systems that will enhance virtually every aspect of our lives – helping to drive California's economy through innovations in medical delivery and health care, powerful new information technologies, energy efficient devices, environmental improvements, and more.
The Elings and Wells gift is the largest contribution to The Campaign for UC Santa Barbara, which seeks to raise $500 million to ensure UCSB's excellence for future generations. With this recent gift, a total of $415 million has been contributed to the campaign by alumni and friends.
Virgil Elings is a former UCSB professor of physics who made fundamental contributions leading to the scientific revolution at the nanoscale. In 1987, he co-founded Digital Instruments (DI), the first company to make the power of atomic scanning probe microscopy readily available to scientists and engineers, enabling them to view and explore nanoscale features and structures never seen before – a critical starting point in nanoscience and nanotechnology.
During their marriage, Betty Elings Wells was a real estate investor and business partner with her former husband, Virgil Elings. Together, they launched numerous entrepreneurial ventures, including Digital Instruments, where she was office manager and secretary of the corporation.
Wells said that she made the gift to UCSB to honor her former husband and mentor, the devoted employees at Digital Instruments – many of whom were UCSB graduates – , and to support the university she has been affiliated with since her arrival in Santa Barbara 40 years ago.
The CNSI building, now known as Elings Hall, stands near the eastern entrance to the campus and is the hub for nanoscience research at UCSB. The institute fosters collaborative research and builds on the substantial and collective strengths of the College of Engineering and the sciences. It also brings together innovators from California universities, industries, and national laboratories and trains the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs.
The Elings and Wells gift will significantly advance nanoscience research at the institute as well as in engineering and the sciences. It will provide $9 million in unrestricted support to develop and implement innovative research and education initiatives and create new laboratory facilities. In addition, a $3.5 million endowment for the CNSI will generate ongoing resources to build and sustain state-of-the-art programs and to allow rapid response to new scientific and educational opportunities.
Evelyn Hu, UCSB professor of electrical and computer engineering and scientific director of the CNSI, noted that the factors leading to Digital Instruments' extraordinary success – innovation, ingenuity, hard work, dedication, and bringing together a core group of people who share a vision – "map so well onto what is underway today at CNSI."
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Neuroscience Project Granted HK$27.5M Funding for World Class Excellence
A cross-institutional research project led by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has received $27.5 million sustained funding support from the University Grants Committee (UGC), reaffirming the project's world-class excellence.
The funding was granted under the "Area of Excellence" (AoE) scheme, which was established in 1998 to support UGC-funded institutes to develop their existing strengths into internationally-recognized areas of excellence.
Prof Nancy Ip, Program Director of the project, as well as the Chair Professor of Biochemistry and Director of the Biotechnology Research Institute at HKUST, said the sustained AoE would bring significant benefits to Hong Kong's emerging biotechnology industry.
In 2001, the "Molecular Neuroscience: Basic Research & Drug Discovery" project led by HKUST was selected as an AoE project and received HK$26.8 million (US$3.4million) from UGC for a five-year period. Driven by a concerted effort from a multidisciplinary team of talented researchers, this project aimed to push the frontiers of neuroscience research, and establish a novel drug development strategy based on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) to develop effective treatments for brain-related diseases and disorders.
Over the last five years, tremendous achievements were made on both the basic research and drug discovery components of the AoE project.
These are highlighted by the establishment of best-in-class facilities, the assembly of a multidisciplinary team, and development of novel research technology. The combined efforts led to significant research advances in molecular neuroscience that have been recognized in prestigious peer-reviewed journals across the world.
The project also resulted in an impressive intellectual property portfolio incorporating biotechnology innovations and applications, as well as a number of novel TCM-derived drug candidates as potential treatments for brain-related ailments. Upon reassessment in 2007, the UGC commended the project as "an impressive program with exceptional performance".
Through the multidisciplinary activities undertaken within the sustained AoE, the team aims to continue the critical work in molecular neuroscience to elucidate complex processes within the brain, and determine the mechanisms underlying various brain-related diseases and disorders.
The team will also focus their efforts on developing new drug candidates for various brain disorders as well as drive the further development of their existing portfolio of TCM-derived novel compounds towards clinical use. Developing effective therapeutic drugs for brain-related conditions is of high importance to Hong Kong and other developed countries due to the increased incidence of such ailments in the elderly as a result of a demographic shift towards an aging population.
As in the previous AoE, the project will be spearheaded by HKUST, and will also involve local institutions including the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Baptist University. The project will also garner the benefits of international expertise through research collaborations established with prestigious academic institutes and experienced industry partners.
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UCR Biologist Receives $1.75 Million Grant to Study Plant-Threatening Bacteria
A research team led by UC Riverside's Leonard Nunney, a professor of biology, has received a grant of $1.75 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to battle a bioterrorist less than half an inch long and bearing a lethal weapon that is microscopic in size.
Nunney's team will study Xylella, a pathogen that has potential, along with its vector, the glassy-winged sharpshooter, to wipe out California's grape, peach and almond industry, as well as much of the state's ornamental bushes and trees. In time, the state's citrus industry also could be destroyed by the sharpshooter and the Xylella pathogen.
There are four main Xylella subspecies, three in North America and one in South America. The South American variety feeds on citrus.
Among the North American varieties, subspecies fastidiosa, the one that causes Pierce's disease, is found on grapes and almonds; subspecies sandyi on oleanders, day lilies, magnolias, and jacarandas; subspecies multiplex on almonds, brittlebushes, sages, olives, oaks, plums, and peaches.
According to Nunney, new Xylella strains are evolving, thus complicating the research being done on the bacterium.
Each of the new strains of Xylella identified so far attacks different plants than do the original Xylella subspecies.
In the next four years, Nunney and his research group will develop a nationwide map of different subspecies of Xylella, and an effective monitoring system both to catch foreign forms introduced into the United States and new forms evolving within the country. With its South American partners, Nunney's group will explore the geographical origins of the different forms of Xylella.
Nunney's interdisciplinary group includes co-PIs Richard Stouthamer, Bob Luck, Don Cooksey and Frank Wong of UCR. Additional collaborators are Lisa Morano, the University of Houston-Downtown; Don Hopkins, Mid-Florida Research and Education Center of the University of Florida; Erin Schuenzel and Norm Schaad of the Foreign Disease-Weed Science Research Unit, U.S. Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), Fort Detrick, Md.; Guillermo Logarzo, the South American Biological Control Laboratory, USDA-ARS, Hurlingham, Argentina; and Carlos Coviella, Universidad Nacional de Lujan, Argentina.
Funding for the research is being provided by the USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES). CSREES advances knowledge for agriculture, the environment, human health and well-being, and communities by supporting research, education, and extension programs in the Land-Grant University System and other partner organizations.
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U.S. Education Department Awards UT System $1.4 Million Grant to Recruit,
Retain Educators at Disadvantaged Texas Schools
The U.S. Department of Education awarded the University of Texas System a $1.4 million grant for a program that aims to boost recruitment and retention of teachers and principals at some of the state's most economically disadvantaged public schools.
The grant – to the UT System's Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) program – is expected to be funded for five years for a total of approximately $25.5 million and would be used to reward high performing teachers and principals in 27 schools, all of which serve large populations of high-poverty and minority students.
Specifically, the funds would be used to implement the Milken Teacher Advancement Program (TAP). TAP's goal is to attract talented people to the teaching profession—and keep them there—by making it more enticing and rewarding to be an educator. TAP provides the opportunity for good teachers to earn more competitive salaries and advance professionally without leaving the classroom. In addition to implementing TAP, the UT System TIF program will provide campuses with a financial incentive pool to recruit highly qualified teachers in hard-to-staff subject areas such as math and science and administrators in hard-to-staff campuses.
The grant was announced at a joint news conference with U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and Congressman Pete Sessions at the Richardson Independent School District's Audelia Creek Elementary, one of 27 schools included in the UT System TIF program. The target schools collectively serve approximately 16,800 students in seven districts scattered across Texas. On average, more than two-thirds of students at the schools qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and professional turnover is as high as 40 percent annually at some of the campuses.
The grant will be administered by the UT System's Institute for Public School Initiatives (IPSI). Created in 2004, the Institute's goal is to improve student performance from preschool through high school through strategic partnerships with UT institutions, community colleges, school districts and state agencies. The UT System TIF program is one of several active IPSI initiatives applying research to improve educator quality, high school graduation rates, reading proficiency and college access and participation.
The UT System TIF program award is one of 18 grants the Education Department has funded in its latest cycle.TIF is President Bush's initiative to develop and implement performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems in high-need, disadvantaged schools, where at least 30 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.
The goals of the program are to improve student achievement by rewarding effective principals and teachers, and, at the same time, to increase the number of effective teachers serving minority and disadvantaged students.
The University of Texas System is one of the nation's largest higher education systems, with nine academic campuses and six health institutions. The UT System has an annual operating budget of $10 billion (FY 2007) including $1.7 billion in research funded by federal, state, local and private sources. Student enrollment exceeded 190,000 in the 2006 academic year. The UT System confers more than one-third of the state's undergraduate degrees and educates nearly three-fourths of the state's health care professionals annually. With more than 80,000 employees, the UT System is one of the largest employers in the state.
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First Lyme Disease Research Center in Nation at Columbia University Medical Center
Columbia University Medical Center celebrates the launch of the Lyme & Tick-borne Diseases Research Center, the first university center for the study of Lyme disease in the country.
With the support of Time for Lyme Inc. and Lyme Disease Association Inc., the center brings together a multi-disciplinary team of CUMC's physician-scientists and the latest advances in medical technology to help unravel the complexities of Lyme and tick-borne diseases.
The center, located within the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University Medical Center in upper Manhattan, will be led by Brian Fallon, M.D., M.P.H., director.
The center will focus on clinical research aimed at developing novel therapies, basic science to unravel disease mechanisms and to identify better diagnostic tests, and education of both medical students and physicians on how to best evaluate and treat patients. With a focus on the particular problems faced by patients with chronic persistent symptoms, the center will lead the country in research to bring the light of science to many unanswered and controversial questions.
The center is involved in major Lyme disease research projects including a multi-institutional diagnostic research project involving Columbia University Medical Center, the National Institutes of Health, the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey, and the U.S. Department of Energy. The center is also developing a a brain bank for autopsy specimens from patients with neurologic Lyme disease to study the neuropathology of Lyme disease.
Dr. Fallon and his team recently completed a PET imaging study of chronic Lyme disease, which highlights ways that functional brain imaging can be used to identify biomarkers with potentially valuable diagnostic and treatment implications for patients with chronic Lyme disease.
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Five New Members Named to NIH Advisory Committee on Research On Women's Health
Five new members have been appointed to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Advisory Committee on Research on Women's Health (ACRWH), which held its semiannual meeting recently in Bethesda, Maryland. The new members are: Ronald Gibbs, M.D., Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Colorado; Scott J. Hultgren, Ph.D., Helen L. Stoever Professor of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine; Mary Beth O'Connell, PHARM.D, BCPS, Associate Professor in the Pharmacy Practice Department at the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Wayne State University; Mary I. O'Connor, M.D., Chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida; and Sally Rosen, M.D., Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Temple University School of Medicine and Director, Center for Women's Health Research, Leadership and Advocacy, Temple University.
The NIH Revitalization Act of 1993 charges the Advisory Committee with advising the Director of the Office of Research on Women's Health on appropriate research activities to be undertaken by the national research institutes with respect to women's health research and recommendations regarding the inclusion of women in clinical trials and opportunities for women in biomedical careers. The committee is composed of up to 18 members who are appointed by the NIH Director.
Dr. Gibbs brings to the ACRWH extensive knowledge in obstetric and gynecologic infections and high risk pregnancies. He is the co-author of the standard text in the field, "Infectious Diseases of the Female Genital Tract", as well as many peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He has provided extensive service to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and has been a mentor for students, residents, fellows and faculty.
Dr. Hultgren's major interests have been in elucidating the molecular details of host-pathogen interactions that occur during urinary tract infections caused by E. coli. He is a recognized authority on issues relating to the structure and function of adhesive fibers that play critical and unexpected roles in host-pathogen interactions. Hultgren is the Center Director of the Washington University Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) on Sex and Gender Factors Affecting Women's Health, which studies the molecular and epidemiologic basis of acute and recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs) in women. In addition to multiple honors, including a Nobel Fellowship, Hultgren was recently selected as Course Master-of-the Year at Washington University in honor of his dedication to teaching.
Dr. O'Connell has focused on drug therapy for the older population with an emphasis on prevention and treatment of osteoporosis. She is the course director of the Special Patient Populations module that includes women's health. O'Connell is the Past President of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, a clinical pharmacist and PharmD student preceptor at the Detroit Medical Center Geriatric Center of Excellence.
Named a "Local Legend" by the American Women's Medical Association and the NIH as part of the "Changing the Face of Medicine" project, O'Connor is active in research and education. She has published leading research on saving limbs after treatment for pelvic and shoulder cancers. O'Connor was the first female member of both the Musculoskeletal Tumor Society (MSTS) and the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons (AAHKS). She is Chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, O'Connor is currently President of the Ruth Jackson Orthopedic Society and Chair of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons ' Women's Health Issues Advisory Board.
As Director for the Center for Women's Health Research, Leadership and Advocacy, Temple University, Dr. Rosen helped initiate the Center in 2005 and has developed multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary collaborations to foster excellence in women's health research and support the mentored research career development of junior faculty at Temple University. Rosen was recently named the first ELAM (Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine) Senior Scholar, a position created to help advance research and other initiatives aimed at addressing the lack of women leaders at the upper levels of U.S. academic health centers.
Continuing ACRWH members include:
Joanna M. Cain, M.D., Chair and Professor of OBGYN Department, Director, Center for Women's Health, Oregon Health Sciences University; Luther Clark, M.D., Executive Director, Atherosclerosis Therapeutic Area, External Medical and Scientific Affairs, Merck and Company; PonJola Coney, M.D., FACOG, Professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Meharry Medical College; Andrea Dunaif, M.D., Charles F. Kettering Professor of Medicine and Chief, Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Molecular Medicine, Northwestern University; Margaret M. Heitkemper, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, Chair and Professor, Department of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Systems, Director, Center for Women's Health Research, University of Washington School of Nursing; Constance A. Howes, J.D., President and CEO, Women and Infants Hospital, Providence RI; Linda M. Kaste, DDS, MS, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Director of Predoctoral Dental Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago; Nancy Norton, Founder and President, International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders; Eugene P. Orringer, M.D., Executive Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Faculty Development, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Susan P. Sloan, M.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Associate Residency Program Director, East Tennessee State University; Phyllis M. Wise, Ph.D., Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, University of Washington; Barbara Yee, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa; and Carmen D. Zorrilla, M.D., Professor OB-GYN, University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine.
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MIT Economist Will Head Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's board of trustees has announced the election of Paul L. Joskow as president of the foundation, effective Jan. 1, 2008. Joskow is a professor of economics and management at MIT and director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
Brown, who was elected chairman of the foundation's board of trustees succeeds Harold Shapiro. Shapiro has been chairman since 1995 and will continue to serve on the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's board of trustees.
Joskow received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1968 and a doctorate in economics from Yale University in 1972. He has been on the MIT faculty since 1972 and served as head of its Department of Economics from 1994 to 1998. At MIT he has been engaged in teaching and research in the areas of industrial organization, energy and environmental economics, competition policy and government regulation of industry. Joskow has published six books and more than 120 articles and papers in these areas. He has been an advisor to many government agencies, nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies and has served on the boards of directors of several U.S. and international corporations.
"The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is well known for the breadth and intellectual rigor of, and public education in, its programs in science and technology, economic performance, quality of American life and critical national issues," Joskow said. "It is my privilege to have the opportunity to lead the foundation, work with its staff and board of trustees, in order to further the foundation's mission and uphold its tradition of excellence."
Joskow will succeed Ralph E. Gomory, who has been president since 1989 and will remain with the foundation as director of special programs. "Paul combines academic scholarship with strong interests in industry and is unusually well-suited to lead this foundation," said Gomory.
Established in 1934 by Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr., then-president and chief executive officer of General Motors, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation makes grants in science, technology and the quality of American life.
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Michael J. Cleare Named Penn's Associate Vice Provost for Research and Executive Director of Technology Transfer
Michael J. Cleare has been named associate vice provost for research and executive director of the Center for Technology Transfer at the University of Pennsylvania.
Cleare will join Penn Aug. 1 from Columbia University, where he is serving as executive director of Science and Technology Ventures.
Working closely with University's vice provost for research, Steven J. Fluharty, and other senior administrators, Cleare will help reorganize and guide Penn research-commercialization activities to improve service offerings to investigators while yielding new resources to sustain, diversify and grow the research enterprise. He will directly oversee Penn's technology-transfer office.
In addition, Cleare will help guide Penn's industry-sponsored research collaborations, particularly as University intellectual property plays an increasingly important role in the formation of academic-industry partnership agreements.
Cleare has managed Columbia's highly successful research-commercialization endeavors for seven years. He was previously employed for three decades by Johnson Matthey, a world leader in advanced materials technology. He has held a number of senior executive positions in research and development, new business development and division-level management. From 1995 to 1999, Cleare served as a parent board director for Johnson Matthey.
He received his B.S. and M.S. in chemistry from Imperial College in 1965 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of London in 1970. He pursued post-doctoral studies at Michigan State University from 1970 to 1972 with a focus on platinum anti-cancer research. Cleare was a named inventor of Carboplatin, one of the most widely used anti-cancer drugs.
He has published more than 40 articles and papers and holds 10 patents.
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$1.8 Million Gift Will Advance Health Research
A $1.8 million gift from Gilead Sciences, Inc., a Foster City-based company whose products treat infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis, will boost Berkeley's research in the health sciences over the next four years. Half the funds will go to Professors Jennifer Doudna and Carolyn Bertozzi, both affiliated with the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology in the College of Letters & Science.The remainder will benefit the Berkeley Health Sciences Initiative (HSI).
Doudna, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology with additional ties to Berkeley's College of Chemistry, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, will continue her research related to the Hepatitis C virus. Earlier, she and her faculty colleague Eva Nogales had discovered the mechanisms the Hepatitis C virus uses to bypass cells' natural defenses and establish an infection. With the funds from Gilead, Doudna will pursue additional research that she hopes will result in the design of drugs able to prevent the virus from taking hold.
Bertozzi will use funds from the Gilead gift to further her research into the pathways for sulfate metabolism in tuberculosis (TB). She has hypothesized that metabolism influences TB's unusual lifecycle, in which micro bacteria live in the body in a dormant state for a long time and also have a complex reaction with the immune system.
In bringing Gilead and Berkeley together, Dean of Biological Sciences Geoffrey Owen and HSI faculty director Robert Tjian sought funding for overall excellence in the health sciences, not simply for individual projects. As a result, Gilead is also providing unrestricted support for the HSI, through which faculty from diverse disciplines collaborate to address pressing health problems, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, and such neurodegenerative disorders as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The Gilead funds will help with HSI faculty recruitment and retention, and will increase support for laboratories conducting interdisciplinary research on stem cell and developmental biology, as well as on infectious diseases.
Owen also hopes that other biotechnology companies will follow Gilead's lead. More and more, traditional supporters such as the National Institutes of Health want basic research paired with a clinical application, or "translational" research. This makes it harder for Berkeley and other universities without the natural partner of a medical school to find funding for basic science research. Working with a biotechnology company, according to Owen, can help overcome this problem: An investment is made in the basic science research that is too costly for companies to do themselves, and the companies gain insights from university research that can lead to new diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.
