In an effort to cope with erratic fluctuations in world oil prices and global warming, UC Merced has appointed professor Roland Winston to research alternatives to fossil fuels.
In joining the founding faculty at UC Merced, Winston says he has a goal of helping establish an “”absolutely world-class academic program”” in renewable energy.
Winston is a pioneer of solar energy utilization research and is one of the country’s leading solar power experts. His research interests include elementary particle physics, in which he and his colleagues have carried out the definitive investigation of hyperon beta decay, a cornerstone of the standard model of elementary particles.
Winston has also invented a new discipline of optics called nonimaging optics, which has revolutionized solar energy utilization because nonimaging solar collectors don’t need to track the sun.
As a founding faculty member at UC Merced, Winston’s responsibilities will extend beyond teaching and research. Once he begins work in July 2003, he will help the divisional deans plan academic programs and recruit the initial complement of faculty, emphasizing the creation of interdisciplinary research teams.
Winston, who is a professor in the division of natural sciences, went to UC Merced from the University of Chicago, where he taught and conducted research for the past 39 years. For six years, he chaired the department of physics.
Researchers find similarity among certain diseases
UC Irvine researchers have discovered an important structural similarity in the toxic molecules believed to trigger cell damage in diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, type II diabetes and CJD, suggesting that a single therapy could combat these different ailments.
During the progression of these degenerative diseases, oligomer molecules constitute the toxic element that triggers the damage of healthy cells. In the UCI study, the researchers applied an oligomer-specific antibody to amyloid proteins that have been identified in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, type II diabetes and prion-related disease. They found that the antibody bound only with the oligomer molecules, but did not bind with the normal amyloid proteins or amyloid molecules in the fibrils. This was true across different diseases, even though the proteins that make up the molecules in these diseases are distinct.
The UCI research team also found that the oligomer-specific anti-body blocked the oligomers’ abilities to kill cultured neuronal cells in all of the protein groups they studied. If the oligomer-specific antibody has the same protective effect in humans, it may be possible to develop a vaccine that will simultaneously protect people against several different degenerative diseases.
The study appears in the April 18 issue of Science.
New technique pinpoints crucial areas of the brain
A team of researchers led by cognitive scientist and UCSD professor Elizabeth Bates has developed a novel new brain imaging technique that produces maps that “”light up”” the specific areas of the brain that are most crucial for normal functioning during critical brain activities.
According to Bates, the new technique, known as Voxel-based Lesion-Symptom Mapping, will be used with structural rather than functional magnetic resonance imaging scans that locate brain damage for individual patients.
VLSM is an improvement on previous lesion-symptom mapping techniques because it does not require patients to be grouped either by lesion site or behavioral cutoff, but instead exploits continuous behavioral and lesion information.
In their study, the researchers applied VLSM to a group of 101 left-hemisphere damaged aphasic patients, using behavioral data from two well-studied tasks: language fluency and language comprehension. The VLSM maps for these variables confirm the anticipated contrast between anterior and posterior areas of the brain, while at the same time implicating interacting regions that also facilitate fluency and auditory comprehension.
Discovery of the new technique was reported in the April 21 issue of Nature Neuroscience.
Renowned Inuit filmmaker to give lecture
Zacharias Kunuk, director of “”Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner),”” an all-Inuit feature film that has won numerous awards worldwide, will give a lecture titled “”The Art of Inuit Storytelling in the Digital Age”” at 7:30 p.m. on May 7 in Price Center Theatre.
A free screening of “”Atanarjuat”” will precede Kunuk’s talk at 7 p.m. on May 6 in Price Center Theatre.
“”Atanarjuat”” was written, produced, directed and acted by Inuit, and tells an ancient Inuit epic story. It won the Camera d’Or at the 2001 Cannes International Film Festival, among other awards.
