Oct. 9, 2007

Carolina in the News

National and international coverage of Oliver Smithies' Nobel Prize continued for a second day.

A sampling of the coverage to date includes the following:

Nobel prize for scientists whose ‘knock-out’ mice led to gene breakthrough
The Times (London)
... Yesterday the three scientists responsible shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine for the creation of “knockout” mice, which have proved a fantastic tool for investigating the purpose and behaviour of genes. Sir Martin Evans, of Cardiff University, shared the £755,000 prize with Oliver Smithies, born in Halifax but resident in North America for more than half a century, and Mario Capecchi, another naturalised American.
Related link: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/s
tory.html?id=ad222ac4-b845-41ac-9d3f-b6e7e44178b4&p=1

3 win Nobel in medicine for gene technology
International Herald Tribune
Two Americans and a Briton won the 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for developing the immensely powerful "knockout" technology, which allows scientists to create animal models of human disease in mice. The winners, who will share the $1.54 million prize, are Mario Capecchi, 70, of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City; Oliver Smithies, 82, of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill; and Sir Martin Evans, 66, of Cardiff University in Wales.

Halifax's Nobel Prize winner
The Evening Courier (Halifax, UK)
A Halifax man has been awarded a Nobel Prize.
Dr Oliver Smithies, who was born in the town and attended the former Heath Grammar School, has won the honour for pioneering research.

University of North Carolina researcher wins Nobel Prize
The Associated Press
Just a few hours after winning the 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine, Oliver Smithies arrived at the small office he shares with his wife at the University of North Carolina. There was, after all, work to be done."I don't intend that this will be the end of my scientific career," Smithies said. "I intend to go on for a while yet." ... Smithies is an excellence professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at North Carolina, where for the past 19 years he has used the technique he and the others developed to study hypertension and other genetic disorders.

3 scientists will share Nobel Prize for groundbreaking technique of inactivating mouse genes
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Two Americans and one Briton -- Mario R. Capecchi, Oliver Smithies, and Sir Martin Evans, respectively -- have won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing the technology to manipulate individual genes precisely in the mouse. The technique has become a keystone of biomedical research and is used by genetics labs worldwide to produce genetically modified mice that serve as models for heart disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and cancer.

3 Win Nobel in Medicine for Gene Technology
The New York Times
Two Americans and a Briton won the 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine yesterday for developing the immensely powerful “knockout” technology, which allows scientists to create animal models of human disease in mice. The winners, who will share the $1.54 million prize, are Mario R. Capecchi, 70, of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City; Oliver Smithies, 82, of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill; and Sir Martin J. Evans, 66, of Cardiff University in Wales.

2 Americans, Briton share Nobel in medicine
The Los Angeles Times
Two Americans and a Briton were awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine Monday for their work in creating "designer mice" -- experimental animals in which genes have been added or removed to test theories about the links between genes and disease. Mario R. Capecchi, 70, of the University of Utah; Oliver Smithies, 82, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Martin J. Evans, 66, of Cardiff University in Wales will share the $1.54-million prize for work that the Nobel committee said "has revolutionized life science and plays a key role in the development of medical therapy."

Nobel for inventors of ‘knockout mice’
The Wall Street Journal
This year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine goes to three guys who figured out how to make “knockout mice” — mice missing a particular gene. Scientists use the mice to figure out what specific genes do.

Trio shares Nobel Prize in medicine for 'designer mice'
USA Today
The 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology was awarded Monday to three scientists whose work now enables researchers worldwide to create "designer mice" that have transformed the study of human disease. ... Oliver Smithies of the University of North Carolina were recognized for discoveries used in "virtually all areas of biomedicine," the Nobel Foundation says.

Trio Shares Nobel Prize in Medicine
The Associated Press
U.S. citizens Mario R. Capecchi and Oliver Smithies and Briton Sir Martin J. Evans won the 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for groundbreaking discoveries that led to a technique for manipulating mouse genes. The widely used process has helped scientists use mice to study heart disease, diabetes, cancer, cystic fibrosis and other diseases.
Note: The Associated Press story was picked up by dozens of national and regional news outlets and on their Web sites.

UNC researcher shares Nobel Prize
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
UNC Chancellor James Moeser was among those eager to praise the new Nobel laureate's accomplishment. "Oliver Smithies' innovations have revolutionized genetic research and advanced the effective treatment of many diseases, and millions of people worldwide have better and longer lives because of the talent and determination he has brought to his work," Moeser said. "For decades, he has embodied the very best of academic research and humanity through his modesty, good humor, creativity and love of invention. Through his example, hundreds of students and colleagues have learned how to help the world through research."

Nobel work (Editorial)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Medical researcher Oliver Smithies is no stranger to News & Observer readers. The UNC-Chapel Hill professor has lived in the Triangle since 1988, and in 1992 was the subject of a Tar Heel of the Week profile. It observed that "Some at UNC, where Smithies accepted a distinguished professorship four years ago, speculate he may someday win a Nobel Prize."

UNC-CH scientist wins Nobel
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Sunday was an ordinary day for Oliver Smithies, 82. He flew his glider over Chapel Hill, took his wife to lunch and crafted a response to a committee that had denied his latest grant proposal. On Monday, the scientist was awakened at 5 a.m. by a call from Stockholm, Sweden. He had won the Nobel Prize in medicine.
Related Links: http://videos.newsobserver.com/vmix_hosted_apps/p/media?id=1524852

UNC Professor Wins Nobel Prize in Medicine
WRAL-TV (CBS; Raleigh)
A professor from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill won the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday along with two colleagues. Dr. Oliver Smithies is the first full-time UNC faculty member ever to win the prize. The prestigious honor was awarded to Smithies for his research in genetics.
Related Link: http://www.wral.com/news/local/video/1905890/

Prize puts UNC center on display
The Winston-Salem Journal
The human genetic code, scientist Oliver Smithies said, is like a series of thousands of books, each book containing 1,000 pages - each page containing 1,000 letters.

Former UW prof. awarded Nobel Prize
The Daily Cardinal (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet named former UW-Madison professor of genetics, Oliver Smithies, a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine Monday. ... Smithies was a professor at UW-Madison from 1960-1988, when he left for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he is currently the Excellence Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.

Here is a sampling of other links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:

National Coverage

Developer is China’s latest hot stock offering
The New York Times
Shares of SOHO China, a Beijing property developer, soared 15 percent on their first day of trading Monday in Hong Kong in the latest hot public stock offering. ... “The scale of what’s happening there is unimaginable,” said Thomas J. Campanella, an assistant professor of city and regional planning at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and the author of the coming book “The Concrete Dragon,” a chronicle of China’s rise.

Shrinking the wage gap
Salon.com (San Francisco, Calif.)
Here's some encouraging news: A study in the October issue of the American Sociological Review found that all female employees benefit from women breaking into the higher echelons of management. ... The "Working for the Woman" study tried a different angle. Huffman, along with Phillip Cohen, an associate professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, performed detailed analyses of previous research on the topic.

Regional Coverage

Visiting higher ed leaders warn of issues to come
C-Ville (Charlottesville, Va.)
UVA President John T. Casteen has said that he finds it difficult to predict what his successor will have to worry about. “I think that presidents who try to meddle in and predict what comes after them inevitably botch it up,” said Casteen at a recent press conference. ... Moeser said that a huge issue on the horizon is the competition to fill faculty spots. With retirement, growth and the usual attrition, Moeser said that UNC is looking at replacing 2,000 faculty members in the next 10 years.

State & Local Coverage

UNC chancellor visits Gaston Prep and KIPP Pride High School Monday
The Daily Herald (Roanoke Rapids)
James Moeser, chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill, spoke to students at both Gaston College Preparatory and KIPP Pride High Monday as part of his Carolina Connects initiative to strengthen UNC's ties to the state's people and communities.

Information gives women more than a salon haircut (Column)
The Winston-Salem Journal
... It began in 2006 when Kelly decided to participate in an unusual cancer-research program run through the University of North Carolina’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

'Normal' quite a feat for double-lung transplant recipient triathlete
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
The term "normal" is used often during Scott Johnson's check-up at UNC Hospitals, a final medical workover before he competes next week in the Ford Ironman World Championship.
Related Links: http://news14.com/content/headlines/588039/lung-transplant-not-slowing-him-down/Default.aspx
http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/
2007/10/08/University/2.Fresh.Lungs.And.Ready.To.Race-3017871.shtml
UNC Health Care Release: http://unchealthcare.org/site/newsroom/news/2007/Oct/scottjohnson

Kenan expansion planning 'on target'
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
North Carolina football coach Butch Davis liked the looks of the temporary bleachers installed in Kenan Stadium's east end zone last week to accommodate about 1,000 extra fans. ... Although a committee still is meeting with consultants and financing has yet to begin, the athletics department hopes to break ground on the expansion project in 18 months to two years, athletics director Dick Baddour said over the weekend.

Blood puzzle may be solved
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
For years physicians noticed that patients who received transfusions of banked blood were more likely to die than those who got no blood. Now Duke University researchers think they know why -- and how the problem may be solved. ... The reasons patients who get transfusions do worse "aren't well understood," said Dr. Mark Brecher, director of transfusion medicine at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill. Still, he thinks the Duke researchers have opened an intriguing new area of research.

Ideas & Trends

Forum focuses on region’s needs
The News & Record (Greensboro)
Many of the issues North Carolinians want the state's public universities to address echo from Murphy to Manteo: more teachers, more nurses, better K-12 education, a plan to address the education of Hispanic youth. Those were some of the topics raised during the Triad leg of a statewide listening tour by the UNC Tomorrow Commission, a group asking North Carolinians what they need from the UNC System to meet challenges over the next 20 years.

Produced by News Services, Carolina in the News is an e-mail sampling of current news media coverage about Carolina people and programs, as well as issues and trends that affect the university. Stories usually will be online and available free for a limited time - often one to two weeks. Expiration dates before stories move to archives vary by media outlet. Some outlets require free user registration or a subscription.

Carolina in the News is also posted daily to the News Services Web page, http://www.unc.edu/news/clips/index.shtml.

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