A look at the top-10 research stories from UNM in 2009
Between the economy, the political battles over jobs, health care and the environment, 2009 was a somber year. But behind all the depressing headlines there were solid accomplishments and progress in research at UNM. Here’s a chance to look at some of the top stories in research.
1. UNM Cancer Center Researchers Identify New Mutant Genes
In 2009 researchers at the UNM Cancer Center identified a genetic mutation underlying one of the most common childhood cancers, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). About 37 children are diagnosed with the disease in New Mexico every year. The discovery could lead to more effective treatments for patients who experience little benefit from drugs targeted toward adults. More…
2. One Can Act Without Group Support; Even in the Bacterial World
When you isolate a bacterium, it immediately begins to try to change its reality. Researchers found it can begin to genetically reprogram itself to adapt and thrive. The researchers were looking at how bacteria behave. It’s long been thought that bacteria needed to act as a group, sending out signals among themselves to behave in a certain way. But it doesn’t seem to be that way at all. More…
3. UNM Cancer Center Designated as NIH Center for Systems Biology
UNM researchers are also beginning to look at how cells ‘talk’ to each other. The UNM Cancer Center received money from the National Institutes of Health this year to set up a Center for Systems Biology. They are looking at what events trigger cancer and other diseases at the cellular level. More…
4. Sexual Encounters of the Third Kind: Darwin’s Beetles Still Producing Surprises
The reproductive lives of animals is complicated, and even more so for the various species of beetles. UNM researchers have found that males come in three physical forms, alpha, beta and gamma. More…
5. UNM’s CETI Program Awarded $10.7 Million Grant from National Institutes of Health
UNM researchers are thinking about how viruses attack, both in mammals and in computers. A new Center for Evolutionary and Theoretical Immunology (CETI) grant to the Biology Department for $10.7 million will allow researches in different departments to collaborate on research into the spread of disease. More…
6. LTER Network Office at UNM Receives $15.6 Million in Funding
The National Science Foundation studies the way ecological systems change over decades. At the Long Term Ecological Research Network Office based in the Biology Department at UNM a new $15.6 million grant will allow researchers to study how plants and animals react to changing climate conditions at a station north of Socorro. The money will be spent to support research activity at the site over the next six years. More…
7. DataONE (Observation Network for Earth) Project at UNM Receives $20 Million Award
Scientists have been researching and publishing data since 1950 for the National Science Foundation. Grants are given to specific researchers who report their findings using a variety of programs and organizational systems. No one has ever tried to put the individual results from thousands of studies together into a searchable data base that could be used by anyone. Until now. UNM Professor and director of e-science at University Libraries William Michener has been given $20 million over the next five years to begin building a cyber infrastructure for sharing science. More…
8. Scientists at UNM, USC and Utah State Study Colorado Magmatism and Uplift
The Colorado Plateau centered in the Four Corners area of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah is about 2.2 kilometers above sea level. However, the rocks that drape the plateau show that it was sea level 65 million years ago. Geologists have long argued over what pushed the plateau above the surrounding landscape. Now researchers from UNM, the University of Southern California and Utah State University think they have figured it out. More...
9. Center for High Tech Materials Celebrates 25th Anniversary
Your laptop is getting smaller and faster because places like the Center for High Technology Materials at UNM are doing some of the hard work of figuring out how to make the next generations of computer chips more efficient. Their original research is already in your laptop. But that’s only part of what they do.
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10. UNM Research Team Finds Evidence Cacao Ritually Used in Chaco Canyon
If just reading all this has been exhausting, kick back and have a cup of hot chocolate. That’s what people in New Mexico have been doing for more than a thousand years. Anthropologist Patricia Crown has found that the inhabitants of Chaco Canyon were drinking and treasuring chocolate at a time when Western European culture was just emerging from the Dark Ages. More...
For more stories about some of the amazing research conducted at UNM, visit and read Quantum, UNM’s online publication of research, scholarship and creative works at: 2010 Quantum.
Media contact: Karen Wentworth (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
Posted by scarr at December 22, 2009 04:23 PM