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 From
the Dean
Wednesday,
November 5 is Bioscience Day: our
opportunity to showcase our science
and to network with colleagues within
the University and external constituents.
We have an exciting program this
year, beginning  with
a keynote address by Dr. Bruce Alberts,
President of the National Academy
of Sciences, followed by five symposia,
a poster session and career fair.
I encourage you to participate as
fully as possible and also to encourage
your students to attend. All events
are free, including a continental
breakfast and lunch.
There
have been several major discussions
of the College's developing strategic
plan this month. I presented the
current draft of the plan to all
departments, the Board of Visitors
and an All-College meeting last
week. Several groups are now developing
white papers on the proposed research
foci. The leaders of the various
groups are as follows: Comparative
Genomics, Bill Jeffery and Charlie
Mitter; Functional and Biomedical
Genomics, Albert Ades; Sensory Neuroscience:
Art Popper; Host-Pathogen Interactions,
Albert Ades and Charlie Mitter;
Biodiversity, Sara Via. If you would
like to assist in developing one
of the white papers, please contact
the group leaders. The next step
will be to merge these plans and
expand the document to clarify the
many issues raised in discussions
to date, as well as others yet to
be identified.
At
the end of this week (November 6-7)
we will be hosting faculty from
12 HBCUs (historically black colleges
and universities) as part of our
Graduate Partners Program. If you
would like a summer student from
one of these campuses, please contact
Amel Anderson (aanders@umd.edu).
October
7: Faculty/Staff Convocation
November
7: Last Day to Drop with
a W
December
20:
Campus Commencement, Comcast Center,
7 p.m. The procession begins at 6:30
p.m.
December
21: College of Life Sciences
Commencement, Memorial Chapel, 4 p.m.
Students must arrive by 3 p.m.; the
procession starts at 3:40 p.m.
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-
American Heart Association, for $260,000
to support "Structural Studies of
the Werner Syndrome Protein" (PI:
Dr. Jin-Shan Hu)
- Frito-Lay,
Inc. ($25,000) and General Mills Corporation
($10,000), for supporting JIFSAN
- David
Youngs, for a $500 contribution to the
Dean's Fund
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NAS
President's Speech, Symposia, Poster
Session and Career Fair Are Highlights
of Bioscience Day
If
you haven't already registered for
Bioscience
Research and Technology Review Day
November 5 in Stamp Student Union,
it's not too late--you can do so at
the door. The free event kicks off
at 9:30 a.m. in the Hoff Auditorium
with a keynote address by Bruce Alberts,
President of the National Academy
of Sciences, titled "Great Opportunities
in Biology: The Role of the National
Academies." The rest of the day,
you can choose from five symposia
on a diverse array of topics. In addition,
more than 130 posters will be displayed
all day in the Grand Ballroom, with
researchers attending their posters
from 12:30 to 2 p.m. And an Internship
and Career Fair with about 50 companies
takes place from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30
p.m. in the Colony Ballroom.
 The
two morning symposia are held from
10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. "Molecular
and Cellular Bioengineering,"
in the Margaret Brent Room, features
talks by professors from Johns Hopkins
University, University of Maryland
and University of Delaware. For "From
Bioinformatics to Molecular Evolution,"
in the Prince George's Room, speakers
include researchers from Princeton
University; Naval Medical Research
Center; Stoney Forensic, Inc.; and
the University of Maryland.
After
a buffet lunch in the Grand Ballroom,
during which you can view posters
on a variety of topics and meet the
researchers, the afternoon session
runs from 2 to 4 p.m. In the Nyumburu
Multipurpose Room, check out "From
Pathogens to Vaccines and Biodefense,"
which features speakers from University
of Maryland School of Medicine, Vical
Inc., UMBI and Virginia-Maryland Regional
College of Veterinary Medicine. Or
choose to attend "Protein Dynamics:
From Picoseconds to Minutes,"
in the Margaret Brent Room, to hear
talks by researchers from NIH and
UM. Another option is "The Dynamic
Brain: Linking Neural Activity and
Behavior," in the Prince George's
Room. This symposium showcases talks
by NIH, MIT and UM researchers.
Last
year's Bioscience Day was a great
success, and we hope to surpass that
success this year. See you there!
Faculty
Recognition and In the News
A
May 2003 article published by Dr.
Mike Cummings, Biology and Center
for Bioinformatics and Computational
Biology, in the Journal of Parallel
and Distributed Computing was
among the top 10 downloaded articles
from January to August 2003. In fact,
his paper was ranked fourth among
these 10 articles. The title of the
paper, co-authored with Daniel S.
Myers, is "Necessity
is the mother of invention: A simple
grid computing system using commodity
tools."
Dr.
Michael Doyle, Chemistry and Biochemistry,
received a 10-month, $113,000 grant
from NSF for "Chiral Catalyst
Development and Applications."
Dr.
Douglas English, Chemistry and
Biochemistry, received a 1-year, $85,000
grant from NIST for "Contract:
Single Molecule Studies of Protein."
Dr.
Catherine Fenselau, Chemistry
and Biochemistry, received a 1-year,
$77,300 grant from NSF for "Workshop
on Prospects for Miniaturization of
Mass Spectrometry" and a 3-month,
$42,000 grant from Johns Hopkins/Applied
Physics Laboratory for "Signatures
of Microorganisms for Identification."
 Dr. David Inouye, Biology, hosted
a meeting on campus in early October
of the North
American Pollinator Protection Campaign,
a consortium of academic, business,
NGO and government representatives
focused on the problems associated
with declining populations of native
and introduced pollinators. About
60 people attended and set priorities
for the next few years, including
pushing the U.S. Postal Service to
issue some pollinator stamps, finding
funding for a National Academy study
of the issue and lobbying for legislation
to fund pollinator research and conservation.
The dinner hosted by the U.S. National
Arboretum featured foods from plants
that rely on pollinators.
 The
following three posters from the laboratory
of Dr. William Jeffery, Biology,
were presented at the 62nd annual
meeting of the Society for Developmental
Biology July 30 through August 3 in
Boston. They sparked considerable
interest in the scientific community
and resulted in the feature article
"Did Cavefish Trade Eyes For
Good Taste?" published about
them in Science News (August
23, Vol. 164, No. 8). The article
discusses how certain blind cave-dwelling
fish in Mexico may have developed
more taste buds and bigger jaws as
they lost their eyes.
-
Hooven,
T. A., Y. Yamamoto, and
W. R. Jeffery. 2003. Hsp90 regulates
lens apoptosis during cavefish eye
degeneration.
-
Strickler,
A. G., and W. R. Jeffery. 2003.
Using a comparative approach to
study eye growth in the blind cavefish
Astyanax mexicanus.
-
Yamamoto,
Y., and W. R. Jeffery. 2003. Pleiotropic
tradeoff during blind cavefish evolution
and development.
A
visit by Dr. Devra Kleiman,
Adjunct Professor of Biology, to the
Memphis Zoo is covered by an October
10 article
at GoMemphis.com. Dr. Kleiman pronounces
its panda research and conservation
plan a necessity to fill a major void
in research. A research associate
with the Smithsonian Institution,
Dr. Kleiman has concentrated on the
social behavior of giant pandas and
golden lion tamarins.
Dr.
Kennedy Paynter, Biology, is quoted
in an October 18 Salisbury Daily
Times story
about scientists who are working
to put Asian oysters in the Chesapeake
Bay. Dr. Paynter hopes that such action
will restore an oyster population
(although not the same species that
currently inhabits the Bay) that can
filter the Bay's water. October 30
stories in the Baltimore
Sun and Washington
Post report that the state
Board of Public Works approved the
plan, in which Dr. Paynter will seed
three Chesapeake Bay tributaries with
6,000 sterile oysters, "half
native, half not."
Dr.
Leslie Pick, Entomology, received
a 1-year, $297,000 grant from NIH
for "The Insulin Receptor Regulates
Drosophila Axon Guidance."
 Dr.
Arthur Popper, Biology, continues
to be very active in issues related
to the effects of human-generated
sound on fishes (and marine mammals).
In September he addressed a meeting
of Caltrans (the California Department
of Transportation-the group that builds
roads and bridges) on issues dealing
with the effects of the sounds produced
by pile driving on fishes and marine
mammals. The specific issue under
discussion is the building of a new
San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge that
would be able to withstand large earthquakes.
The issue is also of concern throughout
the West Coast and in Europe. Dr.
Popper's involvement with the issue
of noise generated by pile driving
parallels his involvement with the
U.S. Navy on the effects of low-frequency
sonar on fishes and marine mammals
and with oil industry regulators on
the effects of seismic air guns (used
in seeking underwater oil and gas)
on fishes. Dr. Popper is a convenor
of an international group that will
develop criteria on allowable human-generated
sound levels in the marine environment.
In addition, he recently received
a 1-year, $200,000 grant from Marine
Acoustics, Inc. for "Fish Research
Controlled Exposure Experiment."
Dr. Popper's recent publications include:
-
Popper,
A. N. (2003). Effects of anthropogenic
sound on fishes. Fisheries
28 (10): 24-31.
-
Volume
17 in Dr. Popper's series of books,
Springer Handbook of Auditory
Research (SHAR). This book
discusses how the ear deals with
a very wide range of sound intensities
and converts this very large range
into a signal that is compatible
with the nervous system. The chapters
in the volume provide insight into
the development of hearing aids
and auditory prosthetic devices.
Four more books in the SHAR series
will be published in 2004. The reference
for this book is:
Bacon,
S., Fay, R. R., and Popper, A. N.
(eds.). (2004). Compression: From
Cochlea to Cochlear Implants. Springer-Verlag,
New York.
Dr.
Michael Raupp, Entomology, is
quoted in an October 11 Baltimore
Sun article
about the "crooning cricket."
He and his wife, Dr. Paula Shrewsbury,
Entomology, disposed of crickets in
their Columbia home by returning them
to the great outdoors. The record
rainfall this year led to an increase
in vegetation and, therefore, to an
increase in the number of insects.
In addition, Dr. Raupp will be the
keynote speaker at the Anne
Arundel County Master Gardeners fall
gardening conference November
8; he will speak about "Murder
and Mayhem in Your Garden."
Dr.
Lawrence Sita, Chemistry and Biochemistry,
received a special creativity extension
of $313,000 from NSF for additional
support of "Mechanistic Investigation
of Amidinate-Based Catalysts for Living
Ziegler-Natta Polymerization."
The extension is based on outstanding
scientific/technical progress achieved
under this grant.
 Maryland
researchers from the laboratory of
Dr. Barbara Thorne, Entomology,
published an article
in Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences regarding
their discovery of a missing link
in the evolution of termites. This
research is also featured in an October
11 New Scientist story,
which reports the findings as follows:
"Turf wars between termites have
helped reveal the selective forces
that created 'eusocial' insects, with
their heavily armed soldier castes.
In particular, reproductive soldiers,
a caste unique to primitive termites,
seem to be a missing link in the evolution
of the sterile soldiers common to
modern termite societies." The
researchers are Dr. Thorne, Dr.
Nancy Breisch and Mario Muscedere.
Mario, now a graduate student in Biology
at Boston University, graduated in
June 2002 magna cum laude and
with High Honors in Entomology. He
was an undergraduate supported by
a Howard Hughes Fellowship when he
did the work that contributed to the
paper. The citation for the paper
is:
Thorne,
B. L., N. L. Breisch and M. L. Muscedere.
2003. Evolution of eusociality and
the soldier caste in termites: Influence
of intraspecific competition and accelerated
inheritance. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences,
100 (22) 12808-12813.
 Alumnus
Wins Enrico Fermi Award
Dr. Raymond Davis Jr., an alumnus
who won the Nobel Prize in physics
in 2002, is one of three scientists
awarded the Enrico Fermi Award bestowed
by the U.S. Department of Energy.
The honor recognizes scientists of
international stature for their lifetimes
of exceptional achievement in the
development, use or production of
energy. For more information, see
the October 9 U.S. Newswire article.
Licensing
Agreement with W. R. Grace
 UM
and W. R. Grace have officially signed
a nonexclusive licensing agreement that
will be used to pursue the possible commercialization
of polyolefin catalysts developed by Dr.
Lawrence Sita. An important part of
this agreement is the placement of graduate
student Andrea Young into what
is hoped will evolve into a regular industrial
internship with Grace, and in particular,
within an IGERT program. In her internship,
Andrea will pursue collaborative research
involving Ziegler-Natta catalysts for
olefin polymerization.
How
to Post Your News
If
you would like to share your accomplishments
or other news, please send a note (and
any accompanying photos)
to Meredith Brittain at
brittain@umd.edu. Issues are usually sent at the beginning
of each month.
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