Board of Regents votes to bring medical school to UT Austin

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by ASHLEY GOUDEAU / KVUE NEWS and Photojournalist ROBERT McMURREY

kvue.com

Posted on May 3, 2012 at 5:41 PM

Updated yesterday at 6:03 PM

AUSTIN --With an unanimous vote, it was decided that Austin will be the home to a new UT medical school.

Thursday, the University of Texas Board of Regents voted to provide money to establish the school. A project State Senator Kirk Watson (D)has been working on since last fall.

"Today what you saw was a transformative historical vote,"Watson said.

Supporters say Austin is one of the only cities of its size without a medical schooland now the pieces are in place to develop one in the city, starting with a $250 millioncommitment from Seton University Medical Center Brackenridge to build a teaching hospital. Now, there's also thecommitment from the UT Board of Regents.

The medical schoolwill cost about $60 milliona year to establish and operate. The board voted to provide $25 million annually for the school. They alsocommitted an additional $5 million each year for eight years to recruit faculty and staff. That money will come from the Available University Fund,money the university collects on oil and gas royalties for property it owns in West Texas.

That leaves a$35 milliona year gap to operate themedical school. That's moneyuniversityofficials say will come from other resources and the community.

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Board of Regents votes to bring medical school to UT Austin

UMass Medical quietly gaining star quality

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In a state that prides itself on its medical and scientific prowess, UMass Medical School is perhaps its best-kept secret. Established by the legislature just 50 years ago, the school is undergoing a growth spurt that has been little noticed by the general public but has caught the attention of people at the cutting edge of scientific research. The Worcester campus is adding 100 faculty to fill a $400 million biomedical research building set to open this year.

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UMass Medical quietly gaining star quality

UT System regents back medical school in Valley

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The University of Texas System signaled significant progress toward establishing a four-year Rio Grande Valley medical school on Thursday, yet raised more questions than answers.

At their Thursday meeting, the UT System Board of Regents allotted funding to the University of Texas at Austin for a medical school. Another motion also approved a school in South Texas.

However, the motion states the board had no discretionary funds for the school, indicating the Valley would have to pony up local money and secure more state funds.

The board has not expressed where in the Valley the school could be established, but their endorsement is in line with state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr.s 2009 bill that calls for the creation of a medical school and health science center in South Texas.

For the past 15 years, we have been working diligently to lay a solid foundation for a medical school in South Texas, UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa said in a press release sent Thursday, alluding to the Regional Academic Health Center here. This is a house built on rock.

However, some state Legislators who represent the region expressed concern that progress on a school in Austin might eclipse efforts for a Valley medical school. They also called for a blueprint from the UT System by September to include a timeline and how the region could contribute to the projects completion.

Meanwhile, UT System is also pursuing its Transformation In Medical Education initiative with the goal of helping students more effectively and quickly pursue their medical education.

The boards motion to develop a South Texas school called for utilizing the three existing academic and research divisions of the RAHC spread throughout the Valley, with locations in Harlingen, in Edinburg under the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, and in Brownsville at the regional campus under the UT School of Public Health.

Lucio and his son, state Rep. Eddie Lucio III, issued a joint statement Thursday stating that they fear Cigarroa will not be able to convince UT regents that a medical school is a crucial part of a South Texas Health Science Center.

The UT board allocated millions of dollars to support a medical school in Austin and called for $35 million in annual community support there. But, the motion for the Valley was more vague and did not cite any funding numbers.

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UT System regents back medical school in Valley

University of Massachusetts Medical School quietly grows into major research presence

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In a state that prides itself on its medical and scientific prowess, UMass Medical School is perhaps its best-kept secret. Established by the legislature just 50 years ago, the school is undergoing a growth spurt that has been little noticed by the general public but has caught the attention of people at the cutting edge of scientific research. The Worcester campus is adding 100 faculty to fill a $400 million biomedical research building set to open this year.

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University of Massachusetts Medical School quietly grows into major research presence

Judge Wilkinson Hints that Overturning Obamacare Would Be a Mistake

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By Jess Bravin

J. Harvie Wilkinson, the federal appeals judge from Charlottesville, Va., long has carried a contrarian streak.

The Reagan appointee disputed President George W. Bushs advice to take up cross-training, possibly costing him elevation to the Supreme Court.

And last month, receiving the Federalist Societys Lifetime Service Award at Georgetown University, Judge Wilkinson hinted that the high court he nearly joined should think twice before striking down the symbol of everything contemporary conservatives revilethe health care overhaul President Barack Obama signed into law over near-unanimous Republican opposition.

It may of course seem tempting to press the advantage when one seemingly has a judicial majority at hand. But this wheel shall turn, Judge Wilkinson said. Lasting credibility on an issue such as judicial restraint requires us to practice it, as the old saying goes, when the shoe pinches as well as when it comforts.

In a new book, Cosmic Constitutional Theory, Judge Wilkinson takes on jurists ranging from conservative Justice Antonin Scalia to liberal Justice Goodwin Liu of the California Supreme Court for legal theorizing that ends up increasing the judiciarys power over democratic processes.

In his Federalist Society remarks, he focused on the constitutionalization of political dispute. Both left and right, he said, now were defined by competing strains of libertarianism.

Liberals have a vision whose central element often appears to be autonomy in lifestyle choices, he said, alluding to abortion rights and same-sex marriage.

Conservatives have a view in which liberty seems to pertain primarily to economic and market freedoms, in areas such as environmental and commercial regulation.

With both sides seeing their positions as constitutional imperatives rather than political aims, he said, the new game is to press ones views into our fundamental charter such that our opponents are left with no quarter and are defeated not in the temporary sense of a political ebb and flow, but in the more absolute tones of constitutional condemnation.

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Judge Wilkinson Hints that Overturning Obamacare Would Be a Mistake

Conservative and Libertarian Coalition hosts first ASUW forum

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Last night, the Conservative and Libertarian Coalition held its first ASUW elections candidate forum, which had an unusual format.

The entire The Husky Impact ticket and Fred Ness were present, while some members of the ProgressUW and Purple Roots tickets were not present due to scheduling conflicts. The members of ConnectUW were not present.

It was sort of a last-minute thing we put it together a couple weeks ago, College Republicans President Austin Van Dusen said. Everything is always a work in progress and just making sure everything runs smoothly is a lot harder than it is.

Van Dusen said the forum may not have been as organized as some of the other forums hes been to, but he was proud to have the clubs presence on campus.

Contrary to the other forums excluding the presidential debate, the Conservative and Libertarian Coalition directed questions to some of the individual candidates, but not to all positions. The audience was given an opportunity to ask questions to some of the positions but the other positions only received individual or general question from the coalition. Additionally, candidates were allowed to respond to each other.

Kate Callison, running with The Husky Impact for director of policy and procedures, was asked how she would use the ASUW wiki and blog.

I believe the blog and wiki really need to be utilized more often, Callison said.

Brian Moe, running on the ProgressUW ticket, agreed with Callisons statement about the blog but disagreed the statement regarding the wiki. He said the current Board of Directors has had serious discussions of abandoning the wiki because nobody uses it unless theyre looking for a job, and it wasnt as accessible to students.

Callison also responded to Moes statement.

The wiki is the most valuable resource we have, Callison said. I believe that the fact that the wiki hasnt been updated is a flaw of the current director of policy and procedures.

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Conservative and Libertarian Coalition hosts first ASUW forum

Gov. Gary Johnson Endorses Judge Jim Gray for Libertarian Vice Presidential Nomination

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The Libertarian Party will hold its national convention May 2-6 in Las Vegas, in which the party will nominate their presidential ticket and celebrate the party's 40th anniversary. Based on straw polls, former Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico is expected to become the presidential nominee. As the presumptive nominee, Johnson has endorsed Judge Jim Gray of California to be the party's vice ...

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Gov. Gary Johnson Endorses Judge Jim Gray for Libertarian Vice Presidential Nomination

Libertarian group to become official

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Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), a Libertarian organization, is set to launch a chapter on campus Friday to raise awareness about the partys platform, which aims to educate students about Libertarian values, including a reduced government role and free markets.

According to public outreach coordinator junior Phil Futuyma, YAL also tries to emphasize the role of the Constitution and liberty within the American government.

YAL is part of a nationwide organization with over 300 chapters at different colleges.

The nationwide organization began after the launch of Ron Pauls 2008 campaign. Since its inception, the organization has hosted massive student protests of the war in Iraq, the national debt and the Transportational Security Agency.

People should be free and able to live the lives that they choose, said Futuyma. We want to use DU as platform to identify, train and mobilize youth activists.

The group, which began forming on campus in February, was started by now-chapter president, junior Daniel Gerstel. Approximately 15 student members joined since Gerstel began forming the organization.

Although YAL will not be an official campus organization until its review on May 5, the group has hosted and planned a series of events to capture the attention of the student population, including a Transportation Security Agency (TSA) booth set up on Driscoll Bridge early April.

Futuyma said the TSA Awareness booth was aimed to raise awareness and anger from students over TSA safety check policies in airports. They especially wanted to point out body searches and overuse of scanners.

We want to educate students on the unconstitutionality of TSA and the moral incorrectness of their groping innocent people, he said The group also hosted Occupy the GPA, an event where they set up tents and sleeping bags on campus similar to the Occupy Wall Street encampments in Denver and throughout the nation. This was done to express YALs disagreements with Occupys message.

Futuyma said students who stopped by their events seemed interested and responsive to their message.

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Libertarian group to become official

Johnson likely to get Libertarian ticket

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Former Gov. Gary Johnson is on the verge of winning the Libertarian Party's nomination for president, but he's reluctant to claim victory yet.

"I wouldn't take anything for granted yet," he said of the Libertarian nominating process, which takes place Saturday at the party's national convention in Las Vegas, Nev. But a moment later, he added, "It does look good."

Johnson has even chosen his preferred running mate -- Jim Gray, a retired California superior court judge, who, like Johnson, is a longtime opponent of marijuana laws. Gray is the only announced Libertarian candidate for vice president.

But even if Johnson wins the Libertarian nod this weekend, he acknowledged his path won't be easy. In an interview Wednesday, Johnson said any hope of being competitive with Democratic President Barack Obama and likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney in November depends on him being included in the presidential debates in October.

But because of the steep standards set by the organization that organizes the debates, that's not easy for any third-party candidate. The last to be included in the debates was Ross Perot in 1992.

Johnson said if he can get on the stage with Obama and Romney, he would have a shot at winning. But as Johnson himself said, "That's a big 'if.' "

The two-term governor, who had been a lifelong Republican, left the GOP early this year after months of being ignored and excluded during his frustrating campaign to win the Republican nomination.

He'd assumed that his reputation as a tight-fisted, small-government, small-taxes advocate who was not afraid to veto hundreds of bills would appeal to GOP primary voters.

However, his libertarian positions on gay marriage, abortion and drug-law reform didn't catch on with socially conservative Republicans. Plus, Ron Paul, himself a former Libertarian Party presidential nominee, announced his candidacy shortly after Johnson entered the Republican race. The better-known Paul was invited to all the GOP debates, while Johnson was only allowed to participate in two.

But -- assuming he's the Libertarian nominee -- being excluded from debates could become Johnson's biggest problem again.

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Johnson likely to get Libertarian ticket

UK Not Amused by Argentina Olympic Ad in Falklands

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The British government is not amused by an Argentine TV advertisement filmed in the Falkland Islands that reasserts Buenos Aires' claims to the islands.

The ad shows Argentina field hockey captain Fernando Zylberberg training in Port Stanley, the islands' capital, to prepare for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

The ad says: "To compete on British soil, we train on Argentinian soil."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Friday said Argentina had suffered some setbacks recently in President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's diplomatic offensive on the disputed islands, which Argentina calls "Las Malvinas."

Hague told Sky Television: "I think what is happening is they are looking for one or two stunts to try and make up for that or save a bit of pride somehow."

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UK Not Amused by Argentina Olympic Ad in Falklands

Cayman premier says London aims to "ruin" his nation

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GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands (Reuters) - A diplomatic spat in the normally tranquil Cayman Islands has put the ruling party and the British government at loggerheads after the locally elected premier accused London of conspiring with opposition politicians to "ruin this country." Premier McKeeva Bush accused British officials, including the British-appointed governor and police commissioner, of ...

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Cayman premier says London aims to "ruin" his nation

Tokyo wants to buy some disputed islands

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TOKYO, May 2 (UPI) -- Tokyo residents have been digging into their pockets to help buy a disputed group of islands in the East China Sea, officials said Wednesday.

City officials said that 76 million yen ($950,000) has been contributed since a special account for donations was set up last Friday, Kyodo News reported.

The Senkaku Islands include five islands and three rocks, all uninhabited. They are about equally distant from Japan and China, and somewhat closer to Taiwan.

Japan annexed the islands more than a century ago, but both China and Taiwan say they are part of Taiwan, which in China's eyes would make them Chinese territory. China calls them the Diaoyu islands and to the Taiwanese they are the Diaoyutai.

Tokyo Gov. Shintato Ishihara said last month the city is negotiating to buy three of the islands.

Japanese entrepreneur Koga Tatsushiro built a bonito processing plant on the islands in the early 1900s. Though the business failed in the early 1940s, the plots of land are technically the private property of his descendants, the Kurihara family, who live in Saitama prefecture.

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Tokyo wants to buy some disputed islands

Naturally blond hair in Solomon Islanders rooted in native gene

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ScienceDaily (May 3, 2012) The common occurrence of blond hair among the dark-skinned indigenous people of the Solomon Islands is due to a homegrown genetic variant distinct from the gene that leads to blond hair in Europeans, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

"This is one of the most beautiful examples to date of the mapping of a simple genetic trait in humans," said David Reich, PhD, a professor of genetics at Harvard University, who was not involved in the study.

The study identifying the gene responsible for blond hair in the Solomon Islands, a nation in the South Pacific, represents a rare case of simple genetics determining human appearance, and shows the importance of including understudied populations in gene mapping studies, said co-senior author Carlos D. Bustamante, PhD, professor of genetics at Stanford. The findings were published May 4 in Science.

"Since most studies in human genetics only include participants of European descent, we may be getting a very biased view of which genes and mutations influence the traits we investigate. Here, we sought to test whether one of the most striking human traits, blond hair, had the same -- or different -- genetic underpinning in different human populations," Bustamante said.

Globally, blond hair is rare, occurring with substantial frequency only in northern Europe and in Oceania, which includes the Solomon Islands and its neighbors. "Its frequency is between 5 and 10 percent across the Solomon Islands, which is about the same as where I'm from," said co-first author Eimear Kenny, PhD, who was born in Ireland.

Many assumed the blond hair of Melanesia was the result of gene flow -- a trait passed on by European explorers, traders and others who visited in the preceding centuries. The islanders themselves give several possible explanations for its presence, said co-senior author Sean Myles, PhD, a former Stanford postdoctoral scholar who is now an assistant professor at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College. They generally chalked it up to sun exposure, or a diet rich in fish, he said.

After researchers at UCSF generated genetic data from the samples, Kenny, a postdoctoral scholar in Bustamante's lab, began the analysis in September 2010, the week she started at Stanford. "Within a week we had our initial result. It was such a striking signal pointing to a single gene -- a result you could hang your hat on. That rarely happens in science," she said. "It was one of the best experiences of my career."

In terms of genetic studies, the analysis was straightforward, said Kenny. But gathering the data, accomplished in 2009 by Myles and co-first author Nicholas Timpson, PhD, was more difficult. Much of the Solomon Islands is undeveloped, without roads, electricity or telephones. It's also one of the most linguistically diverse nations in the world, with dozens of languages spoken.

It was a return trip for Myles who had been there in 2004 as a graduate student with Max Planck Institute molecular anthropologist Mark Stoneking, PhD, (also a co-author of the study) to investigate whether the language variations correlated with genetic variations. While there, Myles was fascinated by the ubiquity of blond hair, which was especially common among children.

"They have this very dark skin and bright blond hair. It was mind-blowing," said Myles. "As a geneticist on the beach watching the kids playing, you count up the frequency of kids with blond hair, and say, 'Wow, it's 5 to 10 percent.'"

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Genetics may explain some people's dislike of meat

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Do you pass when it comes to pork? If you do, the reason you dont like the taste of bacon or ham may lie in your genes.

According to a new study from Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., researchers have discovered that about 70 percent of people have two functional copies of a gene called OR7D4. The gene is linked to an odor receptor that detects a compound called androstenone a chemical in male mammals, most commonly in pork.

People who have only one or no functional copies of OR7D4 dont mind the scent of pork; those with two copies, however, turned their nose up at the smell.

Even though we found this gene, we didnt expect to see such strong food preference, said Hiroaki Matsunami, a Duke associate professor of molecular genetics and microbiology and one of the lead researchers for the study. With any food if its meat or bread or fruit you find hundreds of volatile chemicals, and this gene only interacts with one of these hundreds of chemicals.

But we found this nice, surprisingly clear answer to this, showing this OR7D4 would explain or predict how you like the meat.

For the study, researchers added different amounts of androstenone to existing pork meat samples, then asked 23 participants rate the meat based on the smell and whether or not they liked the taste.

After each rating, DNA samples were collected from the participants to determine the genotype of their OR7D4 gene. Every single person sensitive to the androstenone had the RT/RT genotype or two copies of the RT gene.

According to Matsunami said this gene could be responsible for certain peoples aversion to other kinds of meat as well.

The male pork meat contains relatively high levels of androstenone, but you can also find it in other types of meat, said Matsunami. In fact, androstenone is also found in human sweat, so its not a pig specific chemical.

Androstenone is a well known pheromone created during the mating process in pigs, giving much more significance to Matsunamis findings. Currently both Europe and the U.S. only sell pork from females or castrated males, meaning the meat contains very low levels of androstenone. In non-castrated pigs, the androstenone levels are over 30 times as much

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Genetics may explain some people's dislike of meat

Myriad Genetics to Present at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2012 Health Care Conference

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SALT LAKE CITY, May 2, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Myriad Genetics, Inc. (MYGN - News) announced today that Peter D. Meldrum, President and CEO, is scheduled to present at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2012 Health Care Conference, at 4:20 p.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday, May 16, 2012. The conference is being held at The Encore at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The presentation will be available to interested parties through a live webcast accessible on the investor relations section of Myriad's website at http://www.myriad.com.

About Myriad Genetics

Myriad Genetics, Inc. is a leading molecular diagnostic company dedicated to making a difference in patients' lives through the discovery and commercialization of transformative tests to assess a person's risk of developing disease, guide treatment decisions and assess risk of disease progression and recurrence. Myriad's portfolio of nine molecular diagnostic tests are based on an understanding of the role genes play in human disease and were developed with a focus on improving an individual's decision making process for monitoring and treating disease. With fiscal year 2011 annual revenue of over $400 million and more than 1,000 employees, Myriad is working on strategic directives, including new product introductions, companion diagnostics, and international expansion, to take advantage of significant growth opportunities. For more information on how Myriad is making a difference, please visit the Company's website: http://www.myriad.com.

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Myriad Genetics to Present at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2012 Health Care Conference