Seven scientists and engineers at the 91探花 have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences, according to an July 15 by the academy. One-third of the 21 new members for 2020 hail from the UW.

The new members are lauded for 鈥渢heir outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement and their willingness to work on behalf of the academy to bring the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.鈥� The academy鈥檚 current membership selected 17 of the new members, and four were chosen by virtue of their election to one of the .

New 91探花members who were elected by academy members are:

• , the Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of the College of Engineering and professor of bioengineering, 鈥渇or outstanding contributions to the design and application of microtechnologies to biomedical research, leadership in interdisciplinary research and education, and entrepreneurial excellence.鈥�
• , professor of chemistry and of materials science and engineering, 鈥渇or the development of controlled polymerization reactions for conjugated polymers, especially alkyl-thiophenes, for organic electronics applications.鈥澛燣uscombe is also a faculty member with the , the and the .
• , professor of Earth and space sciences, 鈥渇or fundamental contributions to geomorphology, for the elucidation of soils, rivers, and landscapes as underpinnings of ecological systems and human societies, and for reaching broad audiences through trade books on agriculture, microbes, creationism, and fisheries.鈥�
• Sue Moore, research scientist at the in the Department of Biology, 鈥渇or contributions to the understanding of Arctic marine ecosystems and pioneering the integration of Conventional Science and Indigenous Knowledge to yield better policy decisions.鈥�
• , professor of pharmacology, 鈥渇or exceptional contributions to the understanding of the molecular mechanisms by which ubiquitin ligases, as a new class of enzymes, control protein ubiquitination in human physiology and diseases, as well as plant growth and development.鈥�

91探花members who were chosen by virtue of their election to one of the National Academies are:

• , professor of biostatistics and of epidemiology at the 91探花and a faculty member at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 鈥渇or pioneering work in the field of designing and analyzing vaccine studies, including studies of HIV vaccines and innovative use of mathematical and statistical methods to study infectious disease.鈥� Halloran was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019.
• , professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering, 鈥渇or contributions to geotechnical earthquake engineering, including liquefaction, seismic stability and seismic site response.鈥� Kramer was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2020.

New members are to be inducted at the annual members meeting, which is currently scheduled for September.

Pam Schreiber, HFS director, named to housing association executive board

, who is executive director of 91探花Housing & Food Services and assistant vice president in the 91探花Office of Student Life, has a new role as well 鈥� she has been elected vice president to the executive board of the .

The executive board sets policy for the association 鈥� which is called ACUHO-I for short 鈥� and makes sure there are resources to serve the needs of its 17,000-some members, which represent 1.2 million on-campus students worldwide. Schreiber will be the board鈥檚 vice president in 2020, then serve a year as president-elect, and then a year as president.

Schreiber said as a board leader she 鈥渨ill focus on developing relationships grounded in trust and respect, and will practice listening carefully, especially to voices that have historically been silenced.”

She wrote in nomination documents for the position that her work in campus housing connects back to her own 鈥渢ransformational鈥� on-campus experience as a first-generation college student.

“My commitment to the field is unwavering,鈥� she wrote, “and I believe that transforming students鈥� lives remains our primary purpose.”

Schreiber joined the 91探花in 2009, from Florida Gulf Coast University.

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Dan Chirot of Jackson School, sociology receives honorary doctorate from University of Bucharest

, 91探花professor in the Jackson School of International Studies, will receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Bucharest, in Romania, for scholarship on that country and the Balkans.

He was given the honor in a ceremony on Oct. 10, during a three-day conference on “Thirty Years After: Post Communism, Democracy, and Illiberalism,” for which Chirot will be a keynote speaker. The title of his keynote talk will be “The Fall, Rise, and Decline of Democracy in Europe and the World.”

Chirot also will give a talk upon receiving the honorary degree 鈥� addressing an all-Romanian audience, which will be titled “Why 20th Century Romanian Sociology and History Are Relevant Today.”

Chirot, who is the Herbert J. Ellison Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies, is also a professor of sociology. He founded the journal East European Politics and Societies and is the author of several books since his first, , was published in 1976. His next book will be “,” coming in 2020 from Princeton University Press.

, Jackson School director, said, “This is a wonderful and most appropriate recognition of Dan鈥檚 seminal work on Romania and the Balkans that date back to his graduate school days.”

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William Catterall named among inaugural fellows of pharmacology society

The has named , professor of pharmacology in the 91探花School of Medicine, a member of its inaugural class of fellows, established this year, honoring its most distinguished members.

The society, called ASPET for short, has 5,000 members worldwide who conduct pharmacological research and work for academia, government or industry; these include neuroscientists, toxicologists, chemical biologists, cardiovascular scientists, pharmacists and more.

Selection as a fellow, the society鈥檚 website states, goes to members who have demonstrated excellence in their contributions to 鈥渁dvance pharmacology, through their scientific achievements, mentorship and service to the society.”

Twenty-two individuals were named fellows for 2019, and will be recognized at the society鈥檚 business meetings and noted in the society鈥檚 quarterly publication, “” magazine.

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Information School鈥檚 Jacob O. Wobbrock, student co-authors, honored for paper

A paper by , professor in the 91探花Information School, and a team of undergraduate researchers has won the Douglas Engelbart Award for Best Paper at , an annual conference of the .

Wobbrock collaborated with a team of undergraduate students on the paper “.” The paper was selected from 102 submissions in all, 30 of which were accepted for the conference.

Co-authoring the paper were Anya Hsu, and Michael Magee of the iSchool and Marijn Burger of 91探花Bothell, all of whom have since graduated. The paper, Wobbrock said, showed that “the perceived credibility of online news pages is significantly affected by visual design elements even apart from actual content, which has implications for consumers and purveyors of real and fake news.” The conference was held Sept. 17 to 20, in Hof, Germany.

91探花Notebook is a section of the 91探花News site dedicated to telling stories of the good work done by faculty and staff at the 91探花. Read all posts here.

In all, 91探花professors make up one-third of the 24 new members, who will be formally inducted in September during an annual meeting at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

Elected by current members of the Washington State Academy of Sciences:

• , professor of environmental and occupational health sciences
• , associate dean for faculty affairs and professor in the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance
• , professor of chemistry
• , professor of electrical and computer engineering and associate vice provost of research
• , professor and chair of mechanical engineering
• , professor of physics at the 91探花Institute for Nuclear Theory
• , professor of pharmacology and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences

Additionally, , professor of atmospheric sciences and of applied mathematics, was elected to the state academy by virtue of his election into the National Academy of Sciences.

The 91探花fellows are:

, professor of atmospheric sciences, was elected for his outstanding contributions to measuring and understanding how radiative heat is transferred through the Earth’s atmosphere, and how this relates to climate and climate change. Fu’s work interpreting satellite data established a key consistency in climate warming in recent decades between the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface. He discovered a shift toward the poles of subtropical jets in a warming climate, showing a widening of the tropics. His parameterization of optical properties of cirrus clouds has been widely used in global climate models. Fu is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, and holds an affiliate faculty position at China’s Lanzhou University. He earned his doctorate at the University of Utah in 1991 and joined the 91探花in 2000.

, professor of anthropology, was chosen for her contributions at the interface of anthropology, demography and endocrinology, particularly in the areas of hormones and behavior and reproduction across the life span. O’Connor is the director of the UW’s Biological Anthropology and Biodemography Laboratory, which specializes in developing and optimizing collection methods and assays for population-level research in reproductive ecology. O’Connor’s research and teaching interests focus on variation in human fertility and mortality, as well as the biological, cultural and environmental factors that contribute to that variation. In her research on human fertility, O’Connor examines aged-related, population and individual-level variation in female productive function. Her latest research focuses on men’s health, with the goal of understanding the biological and behavioral factors that cause men to have higher mortality rates than women. O’Connor earned her doctorate from the State University of New York at Albany in 1995 and has been a member of the 91探花faculty since 1999.

, professor of pathology, is noted for his work on the biology of longevity.聽In mammalian cells, he studies physiological and biochemical processes that contribute to a longer, healthier life. His research with transgenic mouse models has increased knowledge of cell signals that delay physical decline. For example, the Rabinovitch lab looks at pathways that might mitigate the aging effects of oxygen metabolism byproducts and of damage to mitochondria, the cell’s powerhouses. Certain chemicals and signaling pathways appear to protect against some debilitations of advancing age: enlargement of the heart, heart failure, loss of muscle tissue and certain cancers. Rabinovitch is the founding director of the 91探花Nathan Shock Center for Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, one of five in the country funded by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. He also is a leader in training new scientists in his field. He has received a Senior Scholar in Aging grant from the Ellison Medical Foundation and a Breakthroughs in Gerontology grant from the American Federation for Aging Research. Rabinovitch earned both his doctoral and medical degrees at the UW, and joined the faculty in 1981.

, professor of pharmacology, is interested in the coordination, timing and precision of protein interactions. He studies a small protein called ubiquitin that is found in almost all living things, except primitive lifeforms. Cells use ubiquitin to control activities of many other proteins. This modification 鈥� called protein ubiquitination 鈥� regulates nearly all biological functions. Problems with protein ubiquitination have been linked to cancer, susceptibility to infection and neurological disorders. Zheng uses X-ray crystallography to visualize the atomic details of protein ubiquitination. His work has suggested new strategies for protecting cells’ antiviral pathways during virus attacks. He also studies how plant hormones and metabolic compounds manage the chemical transfer of ubiquitin onto proteins. His findings may open new avenues for developing drugs that enhance protein interactions. In addition, Zheng analyzes cell membrane proteins to discover potential drug-binding sites. Zheng is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and his projects are also supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Pew Scholar Program, the National Science Foundation and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. He earned his doctorate at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and has been at the 91探花since 2002.

A class of drugs used to treat anxiety and epileptic seizure reduces some autistic behaviors in mice, when given in low, non-sedating doses.聽 These findings point to the possibility of testing a new therapeutic approach to managing autism in people. The findings are reported in the March 19 issue of the CELL journal Neuron.

William Catterall, 91探花chair and professor聽 of pharmacology, is senior author of聽 the research paper.

鈥淭hese are very exciting results because they suggest that existing drugs, called benzodiazepines, might be useful in treatment of the core deficits in autism,鈥� he said

These deficits include repetitive behaviors and difficulty relating to others.聽The condition is often聽accompanied by specific聽learning problems.聽Catterall explained that a particular, well-studied聽strain of mice聽acts in聽ways that聽resemble these聽autistic traits.聽 Scientists are interested in their brain chemistry.

Normally, inhibitory nerve cells in the brain聽send chemical signals that put the brake on excitatory nerve cells. Research indicates that the strain of mice with autistic behaviors have lower activity of inhibitory neurons and higher activity of excitatory neurons in the brain.聽In the study, scientists restored the balance with low, nonsedating聽doses of benzodiazipine.

鈥淥ur results provide strong evidence that increasing inhibitory neurotransmission is an effective approach to improvement of social interactions, repetitive behaviors, and cognitive deficits in a well-established autism animal model that has some similar behavioral features as human autism,鈥� Catterall said.

Read at the new site for the 91探花Health Sciences and 91探花Medicine news.

on the research.

The solution to the longstanding riddle is reported in the Nov. 24 advanced online edition of Nature by 91探花and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators. Dr. Ning Zheng, a noted X-ray crystallographer, and Dr. William Catterall, a pioneer in ion channel research, were the senior researchers, and Dr. Lin Tang and Dr. Tamer Gamal El-Din headed the project.

The cardiac muscle cells of the heart face an extracellular fluid where the concentration of sodium ions is 70 times greater than that of calcium ions. Even though calcium and sodium ions are nearly identical in diameter, calcium channels preferentially pass the far-less-abundant calcium ions through them with astounding speed. Calcium ions gush through the voltage-gated calcium channels of cells at the rate of more than one million ions per second.

“How calcium channels are able to solve this fundamental biophysical problem has been a longstanding question in cell physiology,” Catterall said. The answer is important to both science and medicine.

The speed and accuracy of these channels in selectively filtering the calcium ions is crucial to many biological activities in which cells cooperate, Catterall explained. Muscle contractions, including the rhythm of the heart, hormone secretion and nerve and brain impulses all depend on these particular channels’ ability to pass calcium through and keep sodium at bay. Calcium channels are also the target of many medications for epilepsy, high blood pressure, heart disease and other serious conditions.

Sodium channels and calcium channels in animals both likely evolved from a single ancestral type of sodium channel in bacterial cells, and kept similar structures and functions, the researchers noted.

Catterall said the research team introduced just three mutations into the 274 amino acid residues of a bacterial sodium channels to create calcium channels.

“We thought if we placed the right residues in the right places, the structure should be accommodating and we could change the channel from selective for sodium to selective for calcium,’ Catterall said. “Luckily it worked. We rebuilt the channel with the full physiological properties of calcium channels.”

They then conducted electrophysiological and X-ray crystallography analyses to try to see what the channel looked like and how it operated. The beamline staff at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Light Source, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, assisted with this data collection.

The team was able to determine how the filter that selected for calcium was constructed, and to report on the pathway calcium ions likely follow as they pass through the pore.

The calcium ions, the researchers said, transition through three binding sites. The first site, in an outer vestibule near the mouth of the pore, is critical in recognizing and selectively admitting calcium ions into the channel and keeping out sodium. This role is supported by the second site inside the pore. This site is single occupancy. The calcium ion there is quickly knocked out by repulsive interactions with another calcium ion approaching from outside the cell, like pin balls ricocheting, even though it would like to bind there.

The third site, with a lower binding affinity, allows the calcium ions to move into the cell.

The flow of ions is accelerated by having these three binding sites in sequence. The flow goes only in one direction because the concentration of calcium ions outside the cell is much larger than their concentration inside the cell. At any given time, the ions also have to be in particular, mutually exclusive positions 鈥� at site 1 and 3 but not site 2, or at site 2 and in the outer vestibule, but not in sites 1 and 3.

“They are moving fast because they are bumping each other,” Catterall said. “The movement of millions of molecules per second generates 15 pico amps 鈥� a miniscule electrical current, only one trillionth the size of the current in an electric wall socket, but enough to drive a cell signal.”

“The details of the structure told us exactly how calcium ions go through this particular type of cell membrane pore, and why sodium ions don’t,” Zheng added. “We were surprised and pleased that this seems to resolve in a clear way an important mechanism that has been unclear for a long time.”

The study was conducted on a bacterial ion channel because mammalian ion channels would have been too big and complicated to be used as a model to obtain structural data, according to Zheng and Catterall. The approach the team took, they said, was a shortcut to obtain the information needed. The new understanding is likely to be applicable to such diverse scientific fields as the neurosciences, endocrinology, cardiovascular physiology, and cell biology.

“This information might also be important in the development of new drugs that act upon calcium channels,” Catterall said. “Understanding the structure and function of the calcium channel might help researchers more accurately target drugs to bind exact areas of the channel to perform their therapeutic actions. These new compounds may work better with fewer side effects. For example, researchers are hoping to design safer medications for chronic pain.”

The research published in the Nature paper was supported by grants from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01NS015851), the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (R01HL112808), a National Research Service Award (T32GM00828) and funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Other 91探花Department of Pharmacology researchers on the project were Jian Payandeh, Gilbert Q. Martinez, Teresa M. Heard and Todd Scheuer.