More CRISPR

Patent Office: 1924

From Science Magazine: The University of California (UC) has received good news on a patent for the invention of the genome editor known as CRISPR—and it likely moves a fierce legal war over who owns the valuable intellectual property for this powerful tool closer to a peace treaty. ...(T)he U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, Virginia, posted a “notice of allowance” on Friday for UC’s CRISPR patent, which it applied for in March 2013. The patent should be officially issued to the school within 8 weeks.

The fight over who invented CRISPR has raged for several years, and many scientists predict its creation will lead to a Nobel Prize. UC earlier lost a high-profile fight over a CRISPR patent issued to a team led by the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Various companies have licensed the CRISPR-related intellectual property of Broad and UC, even as the patents have been in dispute. The invention of CRISPR technology spawned a multibillion-dollar industry as it promises to lead to new medicine, crops, and fundamental insights about biology...

Full story at https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/02/new-patent-win-university-california-upends-crispr-legal-battle

Loquacious Verbosity

From Inside Higher Ed:

A new study in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology analyzed the words used in the abstracts of National Science Foundation grants. The analysis found that projects received, on average, larger awards when abstracts were longer, used fewer common words and were written with "verbal certainty." In some ways, the findings raise questions about NSF requests that scientists "communicate in a plain manner," the study says.

Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/02/08/study-words-used-nsf-grant-proposals

Well, with Valentines Day coming up, perhaps verbosity pays off in more ways than one:

Private Student Housing Complex - Part 4

From the Bruin: A student coalition endorsed a high-rise housing project in Westwood in response to various community organizations that have opposed the development.

The Westwood Forward student leadership committee endorsed The Agora housing development, a proposed 16-story apartment complex on Hilgard Avenue, at their meeting Jan. 31. The developers filed the plan for the housing project with the city of Los Angeles in November and have since spoken to stakeholders and advisory boards on the project.

Michael Skiles, a leader of Westwood Forward and its student leadership committee, said the committee voted in support of the project because they recognized the need for student housing in Westwood. Skiles said the only way to raise the quality of housing and increase the quantity of affordable housing is through large housing projects like The Agora. Westwood Forward is a coalition of students and stakeholders who aim to revitalize Westwood.

The current tenant of the site The Agora aims to develop, PodShare, has 90 beds and charges residents $840 a month, PodShare Manager Ashley Miniard said. However, the location is only 60 to 70 percent occupied each day. If The Agora’s application is approved by the city, PodShare’s lease would end prematurely to accommodate the new housing development.

Aaron Green, a spokesperson for The Agora, said the development will offer 462 beds for $1,000 to $1,200 a month, with at least 52 beds offered for less than $500 a month in accordance with Measure JJJ, meaning the beds will be priced less than the proposed standard rent range for Westwood.

Skiles said he thinks The Agora would allow more people to benefit from affordable and high-quality housing than PodShare, based on information provided by Green.

In addition, PodShare’s longest rental period is eight months, Skiles said. Miniard confirmed that most people don’t stay at PodShare for more than eight months.

Skiles added PodShare’s housing is more suitable as a temporary residence than as permanent student housing.

Skiles said his coalition’s platform aims to provide student housing in Westwood.

“If we don’t rally behind this single attempt to build student housing, then it will signal to the community that even with Westwood Forward and all the progress we’ve made, there’s no political difference in the reality that it’s impossible to build housing in Westwood,” Skiles said.

The Holmby Westwood Property Owners Association voted in opposition of the project while the UCLA Graduate Students Association endorsed it. The Westwood Neighborhood Council voted against the housing project as well at their January meeting, but now plans to repeal their initial vote...

Full story at http://dailybruin.com/2019/02/07/westwood-forward-endorses-the-agora-citing-potential-as-affordable-student-housing/

Uniting

From Science Magazine: After 5 years as a postdoc—four of them at the University of California (UC), Los Angeles—molecular biologist Christina Priest hit the university’s time limit for postdoctoral appointments and transitioned to a university staff position as a project scientist in the same lab. Now an at-will employee in a job with no set end time, she says she finds her work “continuing the project I initiated as a postdoc … not enormously different, [despite] more responsibility.”

But she has less of something important: income. “I was making more as a fifth-year postdoc than I am making as a project scientist,” not to mention a “huge increase” in health insurance premiums, “from about $40 a month to about $260 a month,” she says. Beyond that, she has lost some of the fringe benefits she enjoyed as a member of the union that has represented the roughly 6000 postdocs in the 10-campus UC system since 2008, when it succeeded in a years-long effort to create the nation’s second, and by far its largest, union of postdocs. (UC graduate students are also unionized.) “It seems unfair to be doing a similar job and to lose benefits,” Priest continues.

The illogic of gaining experience and responsibility while losing pay and fringe benefits she had as a “trainee” inspired Priest to sign on as soon as she heard, in 2017, that the same union that represented her as a postdoc, UAW Local 5810, had a campaign underway to establish a new bargaining unit for people like her. The proposed new unit, Academic Researchers United (ARU), hopes to represent people who, like Priest, are UC professional researchers but neither postdocs nor tenure-eligible faculty members. These workers hold a variety of titles, including project scientist, specialist, and researcher, and people like them work under still other designations at other institutions. All, however, share a common goal: doing research and “contributing to the main mission of the university,” says Priest, who serves on the proposed union’s bargaining committee. A number “are also bringing in grant money” as principal investigators on their own grants...

Full story at https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2019/02/university-california-staff-researchers-opt-form-union-joining-postdocs

Still Opaque?

State auditor says UC’s Napolitano has not implemented transparency reforms

Nanette Asimov, Feb. 6, 2019, San Francisco Chronicle

Nearly a year after a deadline for the University of California to overhaul business practices at its headquarters, UC President Janet Napolitano has made improvements but is still doing business in a way that lets her office amass “virtually an unlimited amount” of money.

That’s the conclusion of a new report from state Auditor Elaine Howle, who has monitored UC’s progress since a 2017 audit found the president’s office had set aside $175 million in reserves without properly disclosing them to the UC Board of Regents. Napolitano was supposed to put policies in place by last April to limit reserves and demonstrate how the public university would return money to campuses, among other fixes. The audit found that $32 million of the reserves came from fees paid by campuses that could have been spent on students and that much of it should go back to the campuses.

“We are still concerned about the lack of sufficient transparency related to fund balance amounts,” totaling $122 million for seven specific programs, in Napolitano’s budget for the current fiscal year, Howle wrote in a report released Tuesday that assessed UC’s progress as of October. “Perhaps of greater concern, the absence of sufficient reserve policies allows the office of the president to retain and maintain virtually an unlimited amount of fund balances and reserves.”

Howle added that the president’s office “continues to lack sufficient transparency that would allow the governor and the legislature to understand what fund balance awards are available to reallocate to campuses.”

Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/State-auditor-says-UC-s-Napolitano-has-not-13595656.php

Note: The report at this moment does not seem to be on the state auditor's website.

Lab Explosion at UCLA Yesterday

When this story first appeared yesterday, the report was sketchy and was a possible reminder of a much more serious accident several years ago that led to major legal ramifications. It appears that this time, however, the incident was much less serious:

One injured in lab explosion at UCLA

By City News Service | February 5, 2019 | LA Daily News

One person was injured Tuesday in an explosion in a laboratory at UCLA. The blast, reported at 2:18 p.m., involved acetone and occurred in a lab fume hood, according to Amy Bastman of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

The victim, a UCLA employee, sustained “superficial injuries to his hand and has been treated,” according to a university statement. The explosion, described by UCLA as a “minor accident,” occurred in the Boyer Biochemistry and Molecular Biology building.

Because the work was taking place under a laboratory hood, there was no chemical spill, and there is no danger to anyone in the building. UCLA Fire and the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to the incident, which has now been cleared,” according to the university’s statement.

Source: https://www.dailynews.com/2019/02/05/one-injured-in-lab-explosion-at-ucla/

Donation to Med School

We always like to salute donations that don't involve pouring a lot of concrete, but do involve research and teaching:

Garry Shandling was always known as a generous spirit to his friends. He died nearly three years ago, but is still proving that. Shandling has bestowed $15.2 million to benefit medical research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Shandling earmarked the funds to benefit three units — the division of endocrinology, diabetes and hypertension; the division of infectious diseases; and the UCLA Agi Hirshberg Center for Pancreatic Diseases — as well as general medical research at the David Geffen School of Medicine, establishing a meaningful philanthropic legacy.

His gift will establish and endow the Garry Shandling Endocrine Surgery Research Fund, the Garry Shandling Infectious Diseases Innovation Fund and the Garry Shandling Pancreatic Diseases Fund. The remainder of the bequest will establish the Garry Shandling Medical Research Fund, which will operate under the direction of the medical school’s dean. In his honor, UCLA also has named the Garry Shandling Learning Studio, a 6,400-square-foot multipurpose space located in Geffen Hall, the school’s medical education building...

Full story at https://deadline.com/2019/02/garry-shandling-bequeaths-15-million-ucla-david-geffen-school-of-medicine-1202549677/