The "Clash of the Cans" food drive competition between UC Irvine and California State University, Long Beach will kick off Monday, Nov. 2. Sponsored by the parking and athletics departments at both institutions, the drive is part of the Black and Blue rivalry series, allowing UCI donors to demonstrate Anteater pride while helping the needy. All food collected through Friday, Dec. 18, will be donated to the Orange County Food Bank. Look for collection bins at parking kiosks, the main parking office, Crawford Hall and, during sports events, the Bren Events Center. Donation bags will be available at all parking kiosks during the campaign. Full bags returned with a business card or email address attached will make donors eligible for prize drawings.   More »

UC Irvine emergency medicine professors Dr. Kristi Koenig and Dr. Tareg Bey have been awarded the Order of the International Federation for Emergency Medicine, which recognizes significant contributions in and commitment to the specialty. It is considered one of the leading honors in the field of international medicine; fewer than 100 emergency medicine physicians worldwide have received it. Koenig and Bey (pictured) are known around the globe for their expertise in disaster preparedness and have worked with foreign governments on their emergency response efforts. Both have also been appointed "international ambassadors" for the American College of Emergency Physicians, helping to promote emergency medicine in Europe and Asia. They will accept the award at an IFEM conference next June.   More »

A toxin produced by mold on nuts and grains can cause liver cancer if consumed in large quantities. UC Irvine researchers have discovered what triggers the toxin to form, which could lead to methods of limiting its production. Because of lax or nonexistent regulation, 4.5 billion people in developing countries are chronically exposed to vast amounts of this toxin, called aflatoxin - often hundreds of times higher than safe levels. In places such as China, Vietnam and South Africa, the combination of aflatoxin and hepatitis B virus exposure increases the likelihood of liver cancer occurrence by 60 times, and toxin-related cancer causes up to 10 percent of all deaths in those nations. "It's shocking how profoundly these molds can affect public health," says Sheryl Tsai (pictured), UCI molecular biology & biochemistry, chemistry, and pharmaceutical sciences associate professor. Tsai is lead author of a study in the Oct. 22 issue of the journal Nature that reports the finding.   More »

The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but new research indicates they also may mirror a brain ravaged by Alzheimer's disease. UC Irvine neuroscientists have found that retinas in mice genetically altered to have Alzheimer's undergo changes similar to those that occur in the brain - most notably the accumulation of amyloid plaque lesions. In addition, the scientists discovered that when Alzheimer's therapies are tested in such mice, retinal changes that result might better predict how the treatments will work in humans than changes in mouse brain tissue. These findings are key to developing retinal imaging technology that could help diagnose and treat people with Alzheimer's, which afflicts 5.3 million people in the U.S. and is the leading cause of elderly dementia. The study, led by neuroscientist Zhiqun Tan (pictured), appears in the November issue of The American Journal of Pathology.   More »

With obesity emerging as a leading health threat to Americans, it's easy to blame a couch-potato culture addicted to calorie-rich foods. But UC Irvine biologist Bruce Blumberg doesn't believe lifestyle alone explains this phenomenon; he thinks industrial pollutants play a part too. Blumberg (pictured) is among a growing number of researchers exploring how chemicals used in plastics, food packaging, pesticides and cosmetics can trigger dramatic increases in body fat. He has even coined a word for these compounds that corrupt the normal function of metabolic hormones: obesogens. While it's unclear to what degree these chemicals contribute to the obesity epidemic, what Blumberg and other researchers around the world are finding is troubling. In ongoing studies, Blumberg has identified how obesogens target signaling proteins to prompt a developing fetus to make more fat cells. This can have lifelong consequences, raising the likelihood of body fat accumulation as a person ages and making it more difficult to lose excess weight.   More »

Jill Berg, nursing science associate professor, will be among those feted at a Nov. 3 banquet for the Chancellor's Awards in Clinical & Translational Science. Organized by UCI's Institute for Clinical & Translational Science, the event - which encompasses a community health workshop earlier in the day - was created to recognize exceptional community-based clinical research and treatment efforts and to raise awareness of the need to quickly translate lab discoveries into clinical practice. Berg (pictured) will be honored as Outstanding Community Research Nurse. Other awardees include Cynthia Barnes-Boyd with the Chicago-based UIC Neighborhood Initiatives, who will receive the Chancellor's Commendation for Community-Based Participatory Research, and Costa Mesa's Share Our Selves, named Outstanding Community-Based Organization. Registration for the workshop and banquet is required.   More »

As America's reliance on cell phones, MP3 players and digital cameras grows, so too do concerns that toxic waste elements in these devices can cause significant environmental and health damage when they are disposed of. In the Oct. 30 issue of Science, UCI researchers Dele Ogunseitan (pictured), Jean-Daniel Saphores and Andrew Shapiro discuss this steadily increasing volume of e-waste and current federal policies for recycling and eliminating hazardous materials like mercury, lead, zinc and cadmium from these devices. They advocate better education programs, increased research efforts and a "cradle to grave" approach to the design, use and disposal of such products.   More »

Bad drivers may in part have their genes to blame, suggests a new study by UC Irvine neuroscientists. People with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it - and a follow-up test a few days later yielded similar results. About 30 percent of Americans have the variant. "These people make more errors from the get-go, and they forget more of what they learned after time away," says Dr. Steven Cramer (pictured), neurology associate professor and senior author of the study, published recently in the journal Cerebral Cortex.   More »

UCI will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with a traveling photography exhibit and a four-day conference. "Icons of a Border Installation," running through Nov. 2 in the Student Center, features images of wall remnants in unified Berlin. A conference called "1989: 20 Years After" is set for Nov. 5-8 and will feature a keynote address by Leszek Balcerowicz, Poland's first post-communism finance minister. The photo exhibit is hosted by the German department and sponsored by the Goethe Institute of San Francisco. UCI's Center for the Study of Democracy is hosting the conference.   More »

UC Irvine's Center in Law, Society & Culture is hosting "Covering the Law," a conference Nov. 9 and 10 exploring justice issues in the media. The event features a screening of "Outrage," a documentary about the gay rights voting records of closeted politicians and the media's complicity in keeping their secrets. Afterward, director Kirby Dick will talk with Lucas Hilderbrand, assistant professor of film & media studies. The screening and conversation will take place from 4-6:30 p.m. Nov. 9 in Pacific Ballroom C at the UCI Student Center.   More »

Locally owned small businesses don't insulate communities from layoffs and closures in bad economic times. Rather, corporate headquarters do the most to protect cities from employment reductions, reports a new study co-authored by a UC Irvine economist. This debunks a popular argument that owners of "mom and pop" stores are less likely to lay off employees, relocate or close their businesses when the economy sours, says David Neumark, UCI economics professor and a Bren Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. The findings validate the efforts of many local governments to attract and retain corporate headquarters, he says.   More »

A new study has found that teens often lack the social and emotional maturity to control impulses. In contrast, intellectual abilities such as logical reasoning reach adult levels long before psychosocial maturity is achieved. "Many crimes committed by adolescents are done in groups and not premeditated. It's difficult for a 16-year-old to resist peer pressure and fully appreciate the riskiness of dangerous situations," says Elizabeth Cauffman (pictured), study co-author and UC Irvine psychology & social behavior associate professor. The study appears in the October issue of American Psychologist, a journal of the American Psychological Association.   More »

The nearly 80,000 immigrants older than 65 who arrive in the U.S. each year are often overlooked by society because they don't hold paid jobs or speak fluent English, says UC Irvine sociology professor Judith Treas. "Elderly immigrants remain in the shadows," says Treas, whose research on them was recently published in Generations, a journal of the American Society on Aging. "They never win spelling bees. They don't join criminal gangs. Nobody worries about Americans losing jobs to Korean grandmothers." Over the last 15 years, Treas and her students have interviewed many foreign-born seniors and their relatives and friends. The immigrants have come from a wide range of countries, including Iran, Mexico, Korea, Pakistan and Cambodia. Treas hopes her research will raise awareness of the issues facing elderly immigrants.   More »

Juergen Kempff, Spanish language curriculum director, passed away Oct. 17 after a long battle with cancer. Kempff obtained his doctorate in Hispanic linguistics from UC Santa Barbara in 1989 and joined UCI's Department of Spanish & Portuguese in 1993. In addition to directing the Spanish language program, he regularly taught Hispanic linguistics at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Although Kempff was a native German speaker, his heart was in Spain, where he traveled frequently; its language and culture informed his research and teaching. Kempff received several awards for instructional excellence and published works on linguistics and language acquisition. He is survived by his wife, Lois, and three children, Daniel, Marcus and Nicole. The School of Humanities will miss his gentleness and friendship.   More »

William Cooper, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Urban Water Research Center at UC Irvine, has received the Outstanding Contributions to Education Award from the Orange County Board of Education and Superintendent of Schools. Cooper was nominated for his work on the Water Innovation Now project, which charged Orange County school children to come up with innovative ways to solve water use and availability concerns. Winning entries were presented by students to international delegates at the UCI-United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization water conference, “Water Unifies.”   More »

In recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the UC Irvine women’s volleyball team will dedicate its Oct. 24 home game against Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to the fight against the disease. As part of this "Dig for the Cure" campaign, UCI Athletics is collecting pledges for every dig made by Anteater players during the match, which starts at 7 p.m. in Crawford Court. The team also will wear pink jerseys and encourages fans to don pink to support the cause. Pledges can be made in advance at www.ucirvinesports.com/digforthecure.   More »

UCI's Thesaurus Linguae Graecae is celebrating its 37th anniversary and honoring the memory of founding director Theodore F. Brunner with a two-day conference Oct. 29-30. TLG is the world's first digital humanities archive. The project has collected and digitized most Greek texts from Homer (8th century B.C.) to the fall of Byzantium (AD 1453). The conference begins Thursday, Oct. 29 at 3 pm at the University Club Library with a keynote address by Prof. James O'Donnell, Georgetown University Provost. The conference continues in the Calit2 auditorium Friday, Oct. 30 from 8:45 to 5 p.m. It will feature panels and papers on topics related to text preservation, scholarly collaboration and the future of large digital collections. Information: beshanor@uci.edu, 949-824-8232.   More »

Chemotherapy is one of the most effective ways to fight cancer, but the toxic medicine can cause collateral damage to healthy tissue. UC Irvine’s Kenneth Longmuir, physiology & biophysics associate professor (pictured left), and Richard Robertson, anatomy & neurobiology professor, believe they have developed a way for these drugs to reach specific tumors with increased precision, thereby limiting side effects. In a study appearing online in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics, the researchers show that doxorubicin — commonly used to treat a number of cancers — can be directed almost entirely to a particular spot in the body with virtually no spread to other organs. “This promising approach opens up a new avenue to helping people survive cancer,” Longmuir says.   More »

The UC Irvine Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center will host a "topping out" barbecue Friday, Oct. 16, to celebrate reaching the halfway point in the construction of its new building. Center co-directors Peter Donovan and Hans Keirstead and Vice Chancellor for Research Susan Bryant will speak at the event. Faculty members and postdoctoral researchers funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine also will attend. The barbecue begins at noon at the construction site next to Hewitt Hall. The building - Sue & Bill Gross Hall: A CIRM Institute - is scheduled to open in 2010.   More »

UC Irvine's identity theft/IRS tax fraud team has been awarded the second-runner-up prize for investigative excellence by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The team comprised UCI Police Department Sgts. Tony Frisbee, Shaun Devlin and Manse Sinkey and Cpl. Caroline Altamirano; UCI information technology security manager Isaac Straley; and Dallas County district attorney's investigator Patsy Williams. The award was presented at the IACP annual conference Oct. 6 in Denver. The selection committee complimented the team on its tenacious probe into the 2008 filing of false federal income tax returns using the Social Security numbers of 198 UCI graduate students. A suspect was arrested that July. The winners were chosen from 100 submissions of excellent investigative work.   More »