News Release
Eight UC San Diego Professors Named New AAAS Fellows
San Diego, CA, January 13, 2011 -- Two Jacobs School of Engineering professors are among the eight University of California, San Diego professors named new Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society.
Bioengineering professor Bernhard Palsson and NanoEngineering professor Shaochen Chen are the Jacobs School of Engineering professors named AAAS Fellows in 2011.
The full list of UC San Diego professors: Philip E. Bourne, Shaochen Chen, Xiang-Dong Fu, Kun-Liang Guan, Yishi Jin, Peter J. Novick, Bernhard Palsson and Kang Zhang. The group is among 503 AAAS members selected by colleagues in their disciplines to be honored this year for “efforts toward advancing science applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished.”
The new Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin at a special ceremony Feb. 19 at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2011 AAAS annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Their names will also be published in the Jan. 28 issue of the journal Science, published by the AAAS.
Shaochen Chen, PhD, professor in the Department of NanoEngineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, was cited for his distinguished contributions to the field of nanomanufacturing, particularly for laser and plasmonic assisted nanopatterning with both theoretical modeling and experimental investigations. (Read about Chen’s research: “NanoEngineers Aim to Grow Tissues with Functional Blood Vessels”.)
Bernhard Palsson, PhD, professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and adjunct professor of medicine, was cited for distinguished contributions in the area of systems biology, specifically in genetic circuits and genome-scale models of complex cellular processes. (Read about a recent Nature Biotechnology paper from the Palsson lab: “Metabolism Models may Explain Why Alzheimer's Disease Kills Some Neuron Types First”.)
Philip E. Bourne, PhD, professor of pharmacology at UCSD's Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, was cited for distinguished contributions to computational biology through research(more than 200 papers), education (two text books), service (co-founder and editor-in-chief of PLoS Computational Biology) and technology.
Xiang-Dong Fu, PhD, professor of medicine in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, was cited for distinguished contributions to the field of molecular biology and molecular genetics, particularly for regulated transcription and RNA processing in development and disease.
Kun-Liang Guan, PhD, professor of pharmacology in the Department of Pharmacology, was cited for distinguished contributions to the field of biomedicine, particularly for his contribution to the establishment of both MAP kinase and TSC-mTOR pathways.
Yishi Jin, PhD, professor of biology and adjunct professor of in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, was cited for her contributions in studying neurodevelopment using the nematode C. elegans.
Peter J. Novick, PhD, professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, was cited for his elucidation of the molecular basis of secretory vesicle release and the role of Rab GTPases using a combination of pioneering yeast genetics and biochemical approaches.
Kang Zhang, MD, PhD, professor of ophthalmology and human genetics and director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine at UC San Diego, was cited for fundamental contributions to genetics and treatment of leading causes of blindness, including macular degeneration, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and for distinguished service in teaching, administration and editorship.
Media Contacts
Daniel Kane
Jacobs School of Engineering
858-534-3262
dbkane@ucsd.edu