A Sampling of Clips for 
March 18, 2004

* UCSD faculty and staff may obtain a copy of an article by e-mailing the University Communications Office

Revealed - How Deadly Bacteria Evade Immune System
Reuters, March 17-UCSD scientists have discovered how bacteria that cause infections such as anthrax, bubonic plague and typhoid avoid the body's immune system -- a finding that could pave ways to control the deadly diseases. In laboratory experiments using mouse cells, researchers at the University of California, San Diego pinpointed an enzyme called PKR that leads to the destruction of large white blood cells that protect the body against pathogens. "If we are able to develop specific inhibitors of PKR, and the drug industry can easily produce them, we may be able to control these nasty infections," said Michael Karin, a professor at UCSD. Karin and his colleagues, who reported their research in the science journal Nature, think their finding could also be useful in battling lethal strains of influenza.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=4589709&section=news

Similar article appeared in:
San Diego Union-Tribune, March 18
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20040318-9999-news_1m18anthrax.html

Can 14 'Super Foods' Rescue Our Health?
USA Today, March 18-A California physician has ventured into the field of nutrition to propose to a nation of dieters that certain "super foods" are the keys to health and weight control. Steven Pratt recommends eating a diet rich in spinach, tomatoes, blueberries, broccoli, oats, wild salmon, turkey, soy and walnuts in his new best-selling book SuperFoods Rx: Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life written with Kathy Matthews. Pratt, an assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology at the University of California-San Diego, says his ideas are based on science.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-03-17-super-foods-usat_x.htm

New Artificial Blood Shows Promise
New Scientist, March 13-Numerous past attempts to develop synthetic blood have failed because doctors got the basic science wrong, claim a handful of researchers. This week it was announced that a blood substitute based on their alternative theories is looking promising in an early trial. (Quote by Marcos Intaglietta, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego.)
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994760

Ice Age to Warming - and Back?
Christian Science Monitor, March 18-The Little Ice Age and "the 8,200-year event" are not exactly household terms. Once only a handful of climate scientists puzzled over these episodes of abrupt climate change. Now, the topic is getting close scrutiny from the Pentagon, the halls of Congress, and even Hollywood - where a disaster movie set for release in May depicts a sudden deep freeze. (Refers to a study led by Jeffrey Severinghaus at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0318/p13s01-sten.html

On the Other Side of Scandal
St. Petersburg Times (Florida), March 18-After the recent Martha Stewart/ImClone scandal surrounding the miracle drug Erbitux, we needed to hear the cleansing story of Gordon Sato M.D. Although only tangentially connected to this sad affair, Sato is a spark of light in what otherwise was ethical midnight. The drug that caused the steep drop in ImClone Systems stock (and was later approved for use) is Erbitux, a promising treatment for colon cancer. Sato is one of the drug's inventors. As a brilliant professor at the University of California at San Diego, Sato headed a team that developed a unique antibody, which became Erbitux and appears to stunt the growth of certain cancerous tumors.
* No link available online.

Data
Canberra Times (Australia), March 18-Nestle has completed the genome sequence of a probiotic bacterium, Lactobacillus johnsonii, known as La1, and the second such bacterium to have its DNA mapped. Latest research into how probiotic bacteria work on health suggests they do not need to be alive to have an effect. Researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Shaare Zedek Medical Centre, Jerusalem, say these bacteria contain DNA which is as effective in stimulating the human immune system when inactivated as when consumed in live microorganisms in dairy products.
* No link available online.

Early Warming
San Diego Union-Tribune, March 17-Global warming is usually presumed to be a modern problem: a byproduct of the Industrial Revolution and its intensive use of carbon dioxide-producing fossil fuels. But humans have been changing the earth's climate for thousands of years, and the changes have been substantial. (Quote by Ralph Keeling, a professor of geochemistry at UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20040317-9999-1c17climate.html

UC is 'On the Edge,' President Says
San Diego Union-Tribune, March 17-Four years of state budget cuts are putting the University of California in danger of losing ground as one of the nation's leading institutions, leaders of the nine-campus system warned Wednesday. "We are on the edge," UC President Robert Dynes told the nine-campus system's governing Board of Regents as they began discussing how to absorb millions of dollars in cuts in the coming year.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20040317-1437-ca-uc-stickershock.html

UC Regents Consider Hiking Undergrad Fees More Than 10 Percent
San Diego Union-Tribune, March 18-University of California regents are considering even bigger fee increases than initially proposed for undergraduate students for the 2004-05 academic year. Rather than a 10 percent jump the governor proposed in January, regents yesterday discussed a fee hike of up to 15 percent - about $750 - so they could lower a suggested 40 percent increase for graduate students. That would raise undergraduate fees to $6,280 next year. (Quote by Eric Frechette, president of the UC San Diego Graduate Student Association.)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20040318-9999-1n18uc.html

UC Regent Ward Connerly Pushes for Multiracial Category
San Diego Union-Tribune, March 17- University of California regent Ward Connerly is part French, part Irish, part Choctaw and part African. But if he filled out a UC application, he'd be considered one thing: black. Connerly says that's 19th century thinking and he's pushing to have UC change its policy and give students the option of declaring themselves multiracial or multiethnic.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20040317-1348-ca-uc-racecounts.html

Letters to the Editor
San Diego Union-Tribune, March 17-Readers express their opinions of the recent article "Asian-Americans Getting Fair Shake from UC."
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/letters/20040317-9999_mz1e17lets1.html

New Number for Poisonings
Business Journal (Silicon Valley), March 17-All of California's poison control centers can, for the first time, be reached through a single, toll-free number, according to the California Poison Control System. Calls to the toll-free number by California residents are immediately routed to CPCS poison experts, the organization says. The CPCS has four divisions located at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, San Francisco General Hospital in San Francisco, Children's Hospital Central California in Fresno/Madera and the UC San Diego Medical Center in San Diego.
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2004/03/15/daily23.html

Similar article appeared in:
City News Service, March 17
* No link available online.