UCLA scientists receive grants Two UCLA
professors are among 20 professors nationally to be awarded $1
million grants by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to creatively
improve undergraduate science teaching. UCLA’s new
“HHMI Professors” are Utpal Banerjee and Robert B.
Goldberg, both professors in the Department of Molecular, Cell and
Developmental Biology. UCLA is the only university in the United
States to have more than one professor selected for this honor.
HHMI challenged professors to “show the same ingenuity in
undergraduate teaching” as they do in scientific research,
and this week announced those who met their challenge. “One
of my goals,” Goldberg said, “is to show undergraduates
how research is carried out, how scientists are just like
“˜the rest of us,’ how much effort, imagination and
creativity go into experimental thought, and how much fun science
is.” UCLA studies MS treatment A hormone
common in pregnant women shows promise as an easily administered
treatment for people with early-stage multiple sclerosis. A new
study by UCLA neuroscientists shows for the first time in humans
that estriol in oral tablet form can decrease the size and number
of brain lesions, and increase protective immune responses in
patients with relapsing remitting MS. The results of the Phase I
clinical trial led by Dr. Rhonda Voskuhl, an associate professor of
neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the
study’s principal investigator, appear in the October edition
of the Annals of Neurology. Previous research has found similar
results in pregnant women and animals with early-stage MS.
Smokers needed for UCLA research Advances in
imaging may allow physicians to detect smaller lung cancers than
ever before. But does screening for lung cancer before symptoms
appear ““ using either conventional X-rays or the latest in
imaging technology, such as low-dose spiral computerized tomography
““ actually reduce lung cancer deaths? On Sept. 18 researchers
at UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center and nationwide are launching
the National Lung Screening Trial to find out. Nationwide, the
study seeks to enroll 50,000 healthy current or former smokers at
risk of lung cancer. The trial is being conducted at UCLA and 29
other sites across the country, seeking to determine which
screening test, chest X-ray or chest CT, is more effective at
reducing lung cancer deaths. At UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center,
the only California site presently offering the screening study,
researchers hope to enroll 2,000 to 4,000 current and former
smokers within the next 18 months. Avoid arguing, avoid a
heart-attack Which has the greatest effect on your heart’s
health: arguing with a spouse or running a marathon? Arguing could
have closer links to later heart disease, but for an unusual
reason. Just thinking about the fight appears to lead to high blood
pressure and later health problems, according to a UC Irvine-led
study. Both tasks raise blood pressure and cause some stress on the
body, but arguments have an emotional side that creates longer
recovery times in the body than non-emotional ““ yet stressful
““ events like running. The study appears in the Sept./Oct.
issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.