Vol. 10, No. 6, May 2001
Prostate Cancer Vaccine? . . . A discovery by scientists
at UC Berkeley could lead the way to a vaccine against
prostate cancer. The researchers found a protein on
prostate cancer cells that tips off the immune system to
the tumor’s presence and brings in an armada of
immune cells to destroy it. If the protein, called an
antigen, is truly unique to prostate cancer cells, it could
lead to diagnostics for prostate cancer and a potential
vaccine therapy against the disease.
The following is a glimpse of some recent achievements by
faculty, students and staff of the University of California
and the national laboratories managed by the university.
In The News
Guggenheims Awards . . . Twelve UC faculty are
among this year’s 183 recipients of Guggenheim fellowships. They are: Frank D. Bean of UC Irvine, JeanLaurent Rosenthal and Lynn Dally of UCLA, John
Ganim and Dale Vivienne Kent of UC Riverside, Ruth J.
Williams and Todd Kontje of UC San Diego, Michael V.
Wedin and Arthur J. Krener of UC Davis, Richard A.
Walker and Yuri Slezkine of UC Berkeley and Abigail
Solomon-Godeau of UC Santa Barbara.
Advance Against Lupus . . . Seeking to understand
why only some people with the autoimmune disease
lupus develop kidney complications, UC San Francisco
scientists and colleagues report that genetics and
ethnicity can interact to increase patients’ risk. Lupus
affects 10 times more women than men and strikes
about one in 250 African-American women compared
with one in 1,000 Caucasian women. The discovery is
expected to improve diagnosis and treatment.
Funds for Studies . . . In honor of the work of activists Erin Brockovich and Ed Masry, Universal Pictures
and UCLA have established a program to help students
pursue studies in environmental and social justice. The
$100,000 donation from Universal – the studio responsible for the motion picture “Erin Brockovich” – will be
divided between undergraduates and graduates.
Developments and Discoveries
Learning and Memory . . . Nearly a decade ago,
researchers determined that the brain contains a
molecule that mimics the active ingredient in marijuana, but its location and role were unclear. Now, UC
San Francisco researchers have discovered that the
molecule acts, at least in part, in a region of the brain
that plays a key role in learning and memory. The study
suggests that the molecule, known as a cannabinoid,
plays a role in particular cognitive functions within a
structure known as the hippocampus.
Doctors Staying . . . Anecdotes abound about
whether physicians are departing California in droves,
but there is no objective evidence of an exodus, according to a report released by the UC San Francisco
Center for Health Professions. It says that the ratio
of physicians to population has increased from 177
doctors for every 100,000 people in 1994 to 190 per
100,000 in 2000.
Tahoe Clarity Falls . . . After two years of improvement, the clarity of Lake Tahoe declined two feet last
year, reports the UC Davis Tahoe Research Group. UC
Davis researchers who have studied the lake for more
than 40 years have warned that, if unchecked, the
long-term decline in transparency will turn Tahoe’s
famous cobalt-blue waters to green.
Spider Silks Unchanged . . . The silks of the common
garden spider contain genetic elements that have
remained the same since the age of the dinosaurs
during the Mesozoic era some 125 million years ago,
two UC Riverside researchers report. Cheryl Hayashi
and John Gatesy say that spider silks are created not
just by the spinning process, but also by ancient protein
structures handed down genetically over millions of
years of evolutionary history.
Health and Nutrition
T
SI
Pyramid Yields Tomb . . . UCLA’s Christopher B.
Donnan and colleagues have uncovered three
unlooted, treasure-filled, 1,500-year-old tombs in a 105foot-high pyramid in northern Peru. The discovery
resulted from a three-year excavation and includes
ceramics, textiles and evidence of human sacrifices.
Y O F CA
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Just Add Water . . . Giving mothers-to-be more water
during labor may make deliveries easier, suggests a UC
Irvine College of Medicine study. Researchers found
that women who received twice the normal amount of
intravenous water during labor were less likely to go
into prolonged labor or to have labor induced.
T
TH
LIGHT
ERE B E
Ice and Orbit . . . About 23 million years ago, a huge
ice sheet spread over Antarctica, temporarily reversing
a general trend of global warming and decreasing ice
volume. Now a team of researchers from UC Santa
Cruz and other institutions has discovered that this
climatic blip at the boundary between the Oligocene
and Miocene epochs corresponded with a rare combination of events in the pattern of Earth’s orbit around
the sun some 20 to 25.5 million years ago.
Mirror Coating . . . Two Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists, Norman Thomas and
Jesse Wolfe, and colleagues have patented an ultra-thin
silver coating for mirrors, which is proving to be far
more durable than any previously used. The coating
was recently installed on a 22-inch mirror for use in
Hawaii’s Keck Observatory. The coating will give each
mirror a consistent 97 percent reflectivity while previous coatings provided about 90 percent reflectivity.
Toddler Learning . . . Toddlers learn to solve problems
much more effectively than commonly thought, says UC
Davis researcher Zhe Chen. In a study of children ages
18 to 35 months, she found that toddlers learn more
complex tasks by at first learning how to perform them
in a simpler way. Gradually, as they repeat the task, the
toddlers adapt to the environment and acquire a
deeper level of learning.
Seismic Images . . . Researcher Marc Kamerling of UC
Santa Barbara’s Institute for Crustal Studies has
developed a new series of images of fault surfaces in
the ocean floor from Ventura to Santa Barbara. The
pictures, compiled from several sources, provide
information that can be applied to models of ground
shaking during earthquakes, since the angle and
configuration of the faults strongly influence how
much the ground shakes.
Not Quite Detailed . . . The eye as a camera has been
a powerful metaphor for poets and scientists alike,
implying that the eye provides the brain with detailed
snapshots. Recent studies at UC Berkeley, however,
show that the metaphor is more poetic than real. What
the eye sends to the brain are mere outlines of the
visual world – sketchy impressions. The brain interprets
this sparse information, probably merging it with
images from memory, to create the world we know, the
researchers report.
The Cutting Edge
Helpful Sleep . . . UC San Francisco researchers are
reporting direct evidence that sleep in early life may
play a crucial role in brain development. Their study
indicates that sleep dramatically enhances changes in
brain connections during a critical period of visual
development in cats. The capacity for “change,” or
growth and strengthening of connections between
nerve cells is the basis of development in the brain.
Alzheimer’s Therapy . . . In a groundbreaking procedure, physicians at the UC San Diego School of
Medicine have surgically implanted genetically modified tissue into the brain of an Alzheimer’s patient. The
procedure launches the first phase of an experimental
gene therapy protocol for Alzheimer’s disease.
Optical Internet System . . . UC Davis engineer Ben
Yoo leads a team building a trial optical Internet
system, using light pulses to transmit data instead of
electrons. The system will also feature an all-optical
router that switches “packets” of data made of light
pulses in the same way that an electronic router
handles data packets. Instead of the conventional
mirrors, Yoo’s router switches light pulses by changing
their wavelength. The system will be tested on campus
this year.
Understanding Ribosomes . . . The workings of a
tiny molecular machine crucial to all forms of life are
emerging from new images obtained by researchers at
UC Santa Cruz. The tiny machine is the ribosome, a
complex particle just one millionth of an inch in diameter. Ribosomes hold the equipment necessary to read
the genetic code and translate it into specific protein
structures. Because many antibiotics work by binding to
and disrupting bacterial ribosomes, understanding its
structure may lead to more effective antibiotics.
Fat Blocker . . . A little-studied enzyme has been
discovered to play a crucial role in adding fat to the
body, scientists at UC San Francisco report. The
enzyme makes a promising target for fat-reducing
drugs, the researchers said, since blocking its action
causes people no harm.
Restoring Vision . . . What is now a difficult, lastresort surgical procedure to restore vision may become
easier and more successful, thanks to a new eye stemcell harvesting device created by researchers at UC
Irvine’s College of Medicine. The researchers found
that the device quickly recovered stem cells from
corneas of deceased donors in high enough volumes to
increase the odds of successfully transplanting them
into the cornea and restoring vision.
Life From Outer Space? . . . By simulating a highvelocity comet collision with Earth, UC Berkeley
scientists and colleagues have shown that organic
molecules hitchhiking aboard a comet could have
survived such an impact and seeded life on this planet.
The results give credence to the theory that the raw
materials for life came from space and were assembled
on Earth into the ancestors of proteins and DNA.
Calcium Signals . . . UC San Diego researchers report
that growing nerve cells in a developing embryo are
guided to their proper targets by bursts of intracellular
calcium that probe what’s ahead and then send back
information to the cells in a kind of biological Morse
code. Finger-like projections on growing nerve cells,
known as filopodia, sample the environment and generate tiny bursts of calcium at their tips that send back information in a manner similar to an FM radio, enabling
the neurons to wire up proper connections.
Lead “Fingerprints” . . . A technique that detects the
“fingerprints” of various lead sources may help target
the causes of childhood lead poisoning, according to
UC Santa Cruz scientists. In a new study, the researchers used the method to identify the environmental
sources that caused lead poisoning in three Santa Cruz
County children. Almost one in every 20 children in the
United States under age six suffers from lead poisoning,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
Dark Matter . . . An international team of astronomers
that includes UC Berkeley scientists has detected in
white dwarf stars what could be a significant portion of
the galactic dark matter that has eluded astronomers
for nearly 70 years. The discovery provides at least a partial answer to a question that has bedeviled astronomers for years: what is the identity of the missing mass
that keeps galaxies from flying apart and the universe
from expanding faster than it does?
Actinide Storage Solution . . . Researchers at Los
Alamos National Laboratory have discovered a new
reaction process that may help in storage of excess
actinide metals, including plutonium and uranium. The
method of reacting actinide elements with stable
elements to create compounds that are environmentally friendly and harder to use in weapons may be a
solution to the serious problem of storing plutonium.
Planet and Environment
Oceangoing Data Collection . . . Two floating robotic
carbon observers designed with the help of Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory scientists are at work
in the northern Pacific Ocean. The floats collect information on the role of plankton and other living things
in the ocean’s carbon cycle and transmit the data via
satellite. From the surface they descend a thousand
meters (a quarter of the way to the seafloor) and resurface at dawn and dusk each day.
Wandering Transgenes . . . Genetically modified crops
are capable of spreading their genetic material to other
crop varieties or to natural plant populations, UC Riverside researcher Norman Ellstrand warns. Scientists developing genetically engineered crops should be mindful that transgenes may end up in different lines of the
same crops or in different species, he said.
Farming’s Environmental Impact . . . Agriculture will
be a major driver of global environmental change over
the next 50 years, rivaling the effect of greenhouse
gases, says visiting UC Santa Barbara researcher David
Tilman. World population, expected to be 9 billion
(double the present population) by the year 2050, will
require the conversion to farmland of natural ecosystems covering an area larger than the size of the United
States including Alaska as demand for food doubles.
This expansion of agricultural land is expected to occur
mostly in Latin America and sub-Saharan central Africa.
Earth Cooling . . . Researchers in Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory’s Atmospheric
Science Division have demonstrated a cooling of up to
2 degrees Fahrenheit over land between 1000 and 1900
AD. The researchers say it came as a result of changes
from natural vegetation, such as forests, to agriculture.
Oceans Show Warming . . . Research by scientists at
Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San
Diego has shown preliminary evidence of humanproduced warming in the upper 3,000 meters of the
world’s oceans. The scientists used computer data that
factored in the influence of greenhouse gases and
direct sulfate aerosols over the last 50 years and direct
observations of heat content change in the ocean over
the same period.
Albatross Flight Performance . . . A new UC Santa
Cruz study of flight performance in wandering albatrosses reveals significant differences between males
and females and between adults and fledglings and
suggests that these differences influence where birds of
different ages and sexes forage for food in the open
sea. Researchers say sexual dimorphism in birds –
differences between the sexes in size and appearance –
is usually studied in relation to breeding behavior, but
in wandering albatrosses it appears to affect flight
performance and foraging patterns.
Gem of a Discovery . . . Diamonds, long the symbol
of love, are now giving geologists new insights about
the interactions between the earth’s crust and interior.
Scientists from UC Riverside and Los Alamos National Laboratory report that microdiamonds –
known to occur in only five locations around the world
– form in conditions very different from those of
traditional gem-quality diamonds. If their model of
microdiamond formation is correct, geologists will need
to rework one of the major tenets of plate tectonics,
the theory that describes the behavior of the earth’s
outer crust and its interior.
Long-Living Trees . . . Trees in old-growth tropical
forests in Brazil’s Amazon live longer than previously
thought, which adds to their importance in the effort
to control increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, UC
Irvine researchers have found. Because the trees live
longer, forests can accumulate carbon for more than a
century if increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide
promote faster tree growth, as some research suggests.
Insights on Society
Rough Waters Ahead? . . . Economists with the UCLA
Anderson Business Forecast see even more indicators of a recession for the nation in 2001 and project a
90-percent chance that the nation’s longest economic
expansion will come to an end no later than the first
quarter of 2002. Further, the economists say “monetary
medicine” from the Federal Reserve won’t stop the
pain this time.
Criminals and Entrepreneurs . . . Some of the same
attributes that create successful, legitimate business
people may operate in the criminal world, says UC
Davis researcher Bill McCarthy. He says some criminals
score high on measures of competence, are willing to
work with other people, have a strong desire to succeed and make decisions that increase their earnings.
Looking to the Future
Growing Human Tissue . . . Scientists at UCLA and
colleagues have isolated fat as the first practical,
plentiful and economic source of stem cells used to
grow a variety of human tissues in the laboratory. The
research team is the first to grow human tissue – bone,
muscle, cartilage and fat – using stem cells harvested
from fat. The availability of the plentiful source of stem
cells will speed development of procedures for repairing and replacing damaged, dead or missing tissue in
people.
Space Spectrometers . . . A neutron spectrometer
designed and built at Los Alamos National Laboratory is aboard NASA’s Mars Odyssey to map the water
table in the upper meter of the martian soil. The
instrument will help scientists understand the climatic
history of the red planet and provide information on
the location and quantity of water available for future
exploration and possible colonization.
Silicon and Liver Cells . . . Researchers at UC San
Diego have created silicon chips with miniature “wells”
– similar to those in muffin tins – that allow the maintenance of fully functioning liver cells, an important
advance for scientists who hope to keep liver cells alive
outside the body. Development of this dime-sized
porous silicon “liver bioreactor” may help in the development of future artificial liver devices.
Kudos
Genetics Honor . . . Gerald M. Rubin, a genetics
professor in UC Berkeley’s molecular and cell biology department, and Susan E. Celniker, staff scientist
at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, have
been awarded the Newcomb Cleveland Prize for 2000
by the American Association for the Advancement of
Science.
Agassiz Medal . . . Charles S. “Chip” Cox, professor
emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography,
UC San Diego, has been awarded the Alexander
Agassiz Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.
The medal and $15,000 prize honor his pioneering
studies of oceanic waves, electromagnetic fields in the
ocean and in the seafloor.
Investing in Education
Heart Programs . . . The Heart of a Child Foundation
has donated $50,000 to UCLA’s cardiothoracic surgery division and pediatric cardiology division.
Raghu and Rashida Mendu, who started the foundation, presented the checks during a ceremony held at
UCLA Medical Center. The foundation funds research to
find the root causes of congenital heart defects and to
improve the care and treatment of children born with
heart defects.
Packard Donation . . . For the past two years, UC
Santa Cruz researchers have been studying coastal
ecosystems as part of a project involving four major
universities. Now, the project funder, the David and
Lucile Packard Foundation, has augmented its original
$17.7 million grant to the four institutions with an
additional $2,285,000 grant for the UCSC portion of the
project. Called the Partnership for Interdisciplinary
Studies of Coastal Oceans, the project involves researchers at UCSC, UC Santa Barbara, Oregon State University and Stanford University.
President, University of California
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