Fire danger: Very high
Lab to recognize human genome research
milestone
The Laboratory will participate in a celebration sponsored by the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute to recognize the milestone of determining the order of one billion chemical base pairs that comprise the human genome.
The "Billion Base Pair Celebration" begins at 10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Nov. 23 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.
The National Institutes of Health is providing an interactive Webcast for the five genome centers and others interested in watching the event using RealPlayer software. To view the celebration, go to http://videocast.nih.gov/, then click on "billion base pair celebration." RealPlayer can be downloaded from this site as well.
Trevor Hawkins of the Lab, who also is sequencing director and deputy director for the JGI, will lead the Webcast at Lawrence Berkeley.
Featured event speakers include Energy Secretary Bill Richardson; Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala; Bruce Alberts, president of the NAS and early planner of the Human Genome Project; and Dr. Francis Collins, director of the NIH's National Center for Human Genome Research.
The JGI is a virtual institute made up of Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and E.O. Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories. It is part of a five-institute consortium working together to sequence the entire human genome by 2003 as part of the U.S. Human Genome Project, jointly funded by DOE and the NIH.
The overall goal is to identify all of the approximately 140,000 genes in human DNA and determine the sequences (order) of the 3 billion chemical base pairs that make up the human genome.
The knowledge obtained from sequencing human and nonhuman genomes one day may help researchers better diagnose, treat and perhaps eradicate the more than 4,000 disorders that are linked to human genetics, as well as solve problems in energy sources, agriculture, environmental cleanup and other areas.
The JGI is responsible for sequencing human chromosomes 5, 16 and 19, which contain genes involved in diabetes, atherosclerosis, asthma, leukemia, certain cancers, schizophrenia, Batten Disease and other disorders.
"The Billion Base Pair Celebration is truly a momentous occasion," said Larry Deaven, director for the CHGS. "I have been involved with human genome activities at Los Alamos that predate both the establishment of the center and the project itself. This event has arrived much sooner than any of us thought it would."
The Laboratory has been involved for decades in the effort to sequence the human genome and helped begin the Human Genome Project. In 1982 the Lab established GenBank, a database that serves as a national repository for genetic sequence information. Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore also created some of the first DNA libraries from flow-sorted chromosomes. More recently, the Laboratory developed a high-resolution physical map of human chromosome 16 and a yeast artificial chromosome map of the short and long arms of chromosome 5.
For more information about the celebration, call Reid Edwards at 510-486-6601.
--Ternel N. Martinez
Employees asked to turn off computers
during Thanksgiving break
The Computing, Information and Communications (CIC) Division Year 2000 SWAT Team asks Laboratory employees to turn off their nonessential computer systems when they leave for the Thanksgiving holiday.
By turning off these computers over the long holiday weekend, the "power up" when employees return on Monday, Nov. 29, will reveal any problems that a shutdown might cause and would identify these issues apart from the rollover to year 2000, explained Weldon Scoggins of Customer Service (CIC-6).
"Because users so seldom turn off their machines, many system features may have never been tested through a full cycle of power off and back on," he said.
For more information, contact Scoggins at 5-4444 or write to wjs@lanl.gov by e-mail.
For more information about the Lab's year-2000 readiness effort, go to http://www.lanl.gov/projects/ia/year2000/ online.
--Steve Sandoval
Speaker to talk about 'The Second Nuclear Age'
Paul Bracken of Yale University's School of Management will talk about how technology is helping to spread weapons of mass destruction in mainland Asia at a Director's Colloquium Tuesday at the Laboratory.
The colloquium begins at 1:10 p.m. in the Physics Building Auditorium at Technical Area 3. The talk is open to the public and will be aired on LABNET Channel 9. It will be rebroadcast on LABNET Channel 10. For more information, see the Nov. 18 Newsbulletin.
Lab's United Way donations exceed $480,000
University of California Laboratory employees have pledged or donated $480,800 to the Laboratory/Northern New Mexico United Way 2000 giving campaign, which meets the financial goal.
The figure includes all matching gifts, which were part of the original goal when the campaign began in September, said Chris Olivera of the Community Relations Office (CRO), who along with Tonya Suazo of CRO, is a campaign co-chair.
The Lab's United Way campaign officially ended Nov. 5, but pledge forms and donations will be accepted and processed until the close of business Wednesday, [Nov. 24], said Olivera.
"We're very pleased with the success of this year's campaign thus far," said Olivera. "Contributions are running about 10 percent above the same time last year and more Lab employees are participating."
"Laboratory employees once again are showing their support for United Way agencies," Suazo said. "But more importantly, I think employees also recognize that their contributions to these United Way agencies do 'touch a life' and improve the quality of life for residents throughout Northern New Mexico."
"Touch a Life" is the theme of this year's giving campaign.
Employees can pledge to United Way through payroll deduction. Or they can write a check to United Way, attach the check to the pledge card and return it to Mail Stop A117 through interoffice mail.
Employees also can designate specific agencies to which they would like their donations or pledges to be donated, Suazo said.
Throughout the Laboratory/Northern New Mexico United Way 2000 giving campaign, which began in September, Lab organizations have hosted special events to raise awareness of the campaign. The Business Operations (BUS) Division hosted a dunk tank in which employees could purchase chances to plunge BUS senior managers into a tank of water by making a donation to United Way. The event raised $11,376 in pledges and donations to United Way.
The Lab's Human Resources (HR) Division also hosted a number of special events, including bake sales, to raise money for the campaign, said Olivera.
The campaign kicked off with the "Books are Fun" book fair and sale in downtown Los Alamos; the book fair later moved to the lobby of the Otowi Building for two days.
The overall campaign goal, including the community, is $730,000, said Olivera. Last year's campaign raised about $665,000 for a number of social service programs in Los Alamos, Española, Fairview, Santa Fe, Albuquerque and El Rito. Of the total raised last year, $467,000 came from University of California Laboratory employees, said Olivera.
Some 8,200 UC Lab employees received campaign pledge cards and donation forms through Laboratory mail. This year, employees could designate their donation or pledge to either the Northern New Mexico/Los Alamos United Way or Santa Fe County campaigns.
Concurrent with the United Way giving campaign is the United Way Leadership Giving Circle, which is open to employees who donate or pledge through payroll deduction at least $1,000 in the current campaign, said Olivera.
Through last Friday, 78 employees had made Leadership Giving Circle pledges or donations totaling $98,000, said Olivera.
Olivera and Carol Mullaney of the Training Integration Office (HR-TI) are on the Northern New Mexico/Los Alamos United Way board of directors.
Martin Strones, general manager of Protection Technology Los Alamos, the Lab's protective force contractor; Sharon Eklund of Security, Planning and Assessments (S-1); Catherine Guillen of Accounting (BUS-1); Pete Bussolini of Facility Management Unit (NIS-FMU-75); and Greg Hanson of Budgeting (BUS-2) are on the board of trustees.
For more information about the 2000 United Way campaign, call Olivera or Suazo at 5-4400, or write to unitedway@lanl.gov by e-mail.
Additional information about the Los Alamos and Santa Fe United Way campaigns can be found at http://www.losalamos.com/unitedway and http://www.uwsfc.org respectively through the World Wide Web.
--Steve Sandoval
DOE Pulse highlights DOE laboratories
The latest issue of DOE Pulse is available online. Pulse is an online newsletter about accomplishments at the Department of Energy's national laboratories. The highlights are short, written to be interesting and very understandable.
In addition to the highlights, each issue features two longer articles -- one about a researcher, the other about a multilab collaborative effort.
Some of the headlines in this issue are "A dynamite way to remediate TNT-contaminated soil" from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, "A lean, low-emission machine" from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, "Microdrilling, mega-savings" from Los Alamos National Laboratory and "Progress in gene therapy research" from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Also in this issue, a feature on a Stanford graduate student's research at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center to find subatomic particles with less than 1/1000th of an electron charge
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Chile contest raises money for The ever-popular chile cookoff, hosted by Deputy Laboratory Director for Operations Dick Burick, raised more than $900 for the Dollars for Scholars scholarship program. Thirteen entries -- six green and seven red -- were sampled by voting participants who purchased tickets to enjoy the luncheon. Photo at left: Petrita Romero, left, of the office of deputy Laboratory director for operations won for the best green chile, while Teresa Trujillo, special assistant to the deputy Laboratory director for business administration and outreach won best red chile. Photo by LeRoy N. Sanchez |
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