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The Regents of the University of California
 

Bureau Briefs

ACADEMIC SENATE

The faculty of the UCLA College, followed by the faculties of the Schools of Arts and Architecture and Theater, Film and Television, will soon be voting on a proposal to institute a diversity requirement for undergraduates. In the past, other proposals have failed. “This one is different, and if people will read it, I think they will be impressed,” Academic Senate chair Kathleen Komar told the Senate’s Legislative Assembly when it met Nov. 16. “The issue of a diversity requirement has been carefully considered over several months by a group of faculty and students who have really hammered this out,” she said. To get an overview of the diversity requirement and comments by Raymond Knapp, chair of the General Education Governance Committee in the College, read the Voice of the Faculty: http://www.senate.ucla.edu/SenateVoice/Issue8_Nov04/home.htm.

MURPHY HALL

Chancellor Albert Carnesale has appointed Gerald S. Levey, vice chancellor of medical sciences and dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine, to the 29-member Independent Citizens Oversight Commission that will govern the stem cell research institute approved by California voters Nov. 2. Under Proposition 71, the chancellors of the five UC campuses with medical centers each appointed an executive officer of his or her campus to the commission. In addition, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante appointed UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau as one of the four other California university representatives to the commission.

GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

UCLA scientists have devised a novel way to repair one of the genetic mutations that causes ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T), a disorder that devastates the neurological and immune systems of one in 40,000 children. A-T usually strikes children before age 2 and confines them to a wheelchair by age 10. Many lose their ability to speak, and die in childhood. Richard Gatti, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and Chih-Hung Lai, a postdoctoral researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine, created a new strategy for tricking the mutated A-T gene into overlooking certain types of mutations called premature termination codons (PTCs). “PTCs are like irregular stop signs located in the middle of the block,” Gatti said. “They stop traffic before it reaches the intersection. We made these stop signs invisible, so traffic continues until it sees the proper stop sign at the end of the corner.”