Three associate deans were hired this week by the University for the College of Medicine: Ruth Bush, Kathryn Horn and David Buck. | Courtesy of TTUHSC El Paso and Baylor College of Medicine via UH Media Relations

Three associate deans for the College of Medicine were hired this week as the University heads into the thick of getting the medical school approved.

The search for the positions began last November when the College of Medicine was approved by the UH System Board of Regents. The medical school is planned to enroll its first class by summer 2020.

“The success of a medical school starts with the quality of its leadership and we are thrilled to be assembling a dynamic team of proven leaders in medical education,” said Stephen Spann, founding dean of the College of Medicine, in a news release. “They will all play a critical role in training a new breed of physicians that understand health disparities and social determinants of health.”

The three associate deans are Ruth Bush, associate dean for medical education; Kathryn Horn, associate dean for student affairs, admissions and outreach; and David Buck, associate dean for community health.

All of the associate deans hired this week come from other medical schools in the state.

Bush was a tenured professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. She also worked at Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center. She oversaw the research of 200 faculty and staff in her positions.

Horn served for thirty years at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, which was approved for its M.D. program in 2013 by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Buck worked at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston for two decades as a professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine.

A main initiative and argument for approval of the medical school is to provide care for medically under-served communities in rural and urban parts of Texas, including the Third Ward.

One goal of the College of Medicine is to have 50 percent of its students be underrepresented minorities in medicine, which include Hispanic/Latino and Black/African-American minorities. The University expects to reach this by 2027 when the college is enrolling 120 student per year, according to an abridged curriculum.

“This is incredibly important,” Spann said at a Board of Regents meeting in March. “Patients relate best to physicians who understand their cultural and ethnic background.”

Although 40 percent of Texans are Hispanic, only 10 percent of Texas’ doctors are, Spann said.

For UH’s medical school to be officially approved, it will need approval by the THECB and the state legislature and accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education.

The University expects the medical school to be approved by THECB this October. The medical school will go for approval by the legislature and LCME in 2019.

news@thedailycougar

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“Associate deans hired for College of Medicine, providing for underrepresented” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

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Writer-director Bo Burnham speaks on coming-of-age triumph ‘Eighth Grade’

Taylor Jewell/Invision/Rex/Shutterstock/Courtesy

Bo Burnham’s following probably knows him best as the funnyman behind comedy songs published on a still-nascent YouTube, or his more recent Netflix special “Make Happy.” He’s the guy who does parody Kanye West rants. He wouldn’t necessarily be pegged as an exciting cinematic voice.

But as a multiplatform artist who’s dabbled in poetry and an MTV comedy series and has even directed Chris Rock’s stand-up comeback “Tamborine,” it makes perfect sense that Burnham would try his hand at filmmaking.

“I was like, ‘I’m really stressed out about performing, and I just wanna write something,’ ” Burnham said in an interview with The Daily Californian.

“I’m gonna write a script that I know I can direct. I’m gonna write a script to my strengths, a simple, emotional story or whatever,” Burnham said.

That story turned out to be “Eighth Grade,” a bildungsroman for the internet age, created by one of its own constituents. A former YouTube star himself, Burnham sought to tell a contemporary coming-of-age story that treats the internet with careful restraint.

“There’s a middle ground in the way that (the internet is) just integrated into all of our lives; it’s just kind of changing the way we interact with ourselves and each other,” said Burnham, a self-proclaimed “elder of the internet generation.”

“But it isn’t the actual substantive thing, it’s not a plot point — it’s an atmosphere. It’s a culture within which a story happens,” Burnham continued.

No character hurls their phone into the ocean in a moment of catharsis, Burnham noted. Rather, students at a school assembly heckle with shouts of “LeBron James” in a drawl that’s recognizable to anyone who remembers Vine. The result is a film that maturely treats the internet as set dressing. Well, as maturely as possible — after all, it’s a film about the awkwardness, horrors and joys of eighth grade.

There to experience it all is Kayla, played by Elsie Fisher in a powerhouse turn that Burnham described as “(like) working with Philip Seymour Hoffman.” Perhaps best known for voicing Agnes in the “Despicable Me” franchise, Fisher asserts herself as a dramatic force to be reckoned with.

Despite her youth, Kayla doles out pearls of “wisdom” on her YouTube channel to an audience of none. “Be yourself,” she futilely advises. As any youngster knows, that’s easier said than done, especially when one’s eighth-grade superlative is “most quiet,” as Kayla’s is. To that effect, “Eighth Grade” captures the interiority of an eighth-grade girl with microscopic focus, which is a credit to Burnham’s screenwriting.

Sure, it’s counterintuitive that a 27-year-old man would effectively write a teenage girl with the detail of a documentary, but Kayla’s interiority came naturally to Burnham.

“I really understood someone that’s very self conscious about what they sound like, and is trying to sound like something and failing to sound like that, and doubling back on their thoughts,” Burnham explained.

“Eighth Grade” is nothing if not accurate in its dramatization of adolescence, and with that comes an unflinching determination to embrace darkness and levity in equal measure. For all the film’s comedy, the third act takes a bleak turn in a scene involving sexual coercion that proves deeply unsettling to watch.

“Sometimes when you look at a thing honestly, it’s dark. And sometimes when you look at a thing honestly, it’s funny. Sometimes when you look at a thing honestly, it is both,” Burnham said. The film’s preference for sincerity results in a balance across a spectrum of tones — amid the inherent seriousness of a school shooting drill, Burnham finds room for a joke or two, without inordinately making light of the situation.

Yet Burnham himself doesn’t know on what ears his humor might land. “I literally was just making this movie going like, ‘This might just be for me,’ ” he said. But if anything, Burnham hopes that parents might find “Eighth Grade” to be informative.

“A lot of adults — 30-, 40-year-olds — are, with young kids, very confused about what’s happening. And I hope this gives them just a little bit of an insight. It’s scarier than you’d think, but your kids are stronger than you think,” Burnham said.

In this sense, the appeal of “Eighth Grade” is that it holds value for a wide gamut of audiences — the middle schooler on the cusp of high school, their family and even the young adult feeling nostalgic for the most awkward years of their lives.

“We wanted to make some stylized naturalism — that was our hope, something in that space,” Burnham said. Following modern coming-of-age classics such as “Moonlight” and “Lady Bird” is no easy feat, but with “Eighth Grade,” Burnham succeeds, honestly capturing the hyper-reality of adolescence.

Not bad for a debut feature.

Contact Harrison Tunggal at htunggal@dailycal.org.

The Daily Californian

Music industry heavyweights, Beyoncé and Jay-Z, released a new album this past week to the surprise of their fans. After each dropping critically acclaimed solo projects, Jay-Z and Beyoncé, or “The Carters”, are back in a full-on collaborative effort. The artists responsible for the creation of this album need no introduction. The Carters are mainstays […]

“Kia’s Driving Creativity” Contest Will Inspire and Celebrate Design Leaders of Tomorrow NEW YORK – JUNE 20, 2018 – Advertising Age, the leading source of news, intelligence and conversation for the global marketing and media community, announced today that it is partnering with Kia Motors America to spotlight design talent from accredited art schools across […]

Researchers pioneer DNA synthesis method that creates genes faster, cheaper

Researchers from the Joint BioEnergy Institute, a scientific partnership led by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, have pioneered a cheaper and safer way to synthesize DNA, with less waste than current methods.

This technology uses enzymes, or substances that speed up biological reactions, to synthesize new DNA. Researchers hope to utilize this new technology to engineer microbes to produce medicines, fuels and more — all biologically.

“We can engineer microbes to produce our fuel, our plastics, our medicines,” said Tristan de Rond, a campus researcher on the project who recently finished his doctorate in chemistry.

Many aspects of biological research and bioengineering require DNA synthesis. Creating synthetic DNA is a way to “redesign biology to suit contemporary human needs,” said another researcher on the project, Justine Kang, in an email.

Currently, ordering a gene costs upwards of a hundred dollars and takes at least two weeks, according to the study’s lead co-author and visiting doctoral student Sebastian Palluk. This new technique is still in its preliminary stages, and Kang said in an email that it is expected to become much faster, allowing biologists to order, or even print their own, DNA in less time.

“Imagine when you’re making a computer, if you still had to solder your own parts,” de Rond said. “In biology, we spend a lot of time constructing the parts we want to use, instead of using those parts.”

This new technique uses an enzyme called a template-independent polymerase terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase, or TdT, where nucleotides are added one by one, creating a brand new strand from scratch. The enzyme normally adds many of the same base pair — A, G, C or T — to a strand, but has been engineered to add only one and then stop, washing the enzyme away before adding a new one.

“Enzymes are extremely specific, so that we expect that no undesired side-reactions occur,” Palluk said in an email. “In addition, TdT, the enzyme we use, is very fast –  it can add up to 200 bases a minute if you let it free wheel.”

Older methods of DNA synthesis are based in organic chemistry. They required an incredibly sterile environment with no water, and produced waste hazardous to both the environment and human health. After decades of refinement, this method can only synthesize around 200 base pairs at a time — the average gene is thousands of base pairs long.

This new technique occurs in water using biological agents, making it cheaper and easier to use than the previous method that employed only chemical reagents. This could make it easier to use in places where sterilization is difficult and in space, where chemical solvents are less readily available.

“What sets our work apart, though, is that our biology can be improved upon,” Kang said in an email. “It raises the ceiling on what’s possible — accuracy, speed, environmental impact — you name it.”

Contact Madeleine Gregory at mgregory@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter at @mgregory_dc.

The Daily Californian

Not only was Comic Con in town, but PrideFest threw a party at the same time in downtown Denver. Denver PrideFest is one of the largest Pride celebrations in the country, attracting around 40,000 people to Civic Center Park and the Downtown area.

Reid Anderson ’18 will be trading in his brown, red and white jersey for pinstripes next season, as the senior right-handed pitcher was selected by the New York Yankees in the 40th and final round of the MLB draft last Thursday.

“Honestly, at this point right now, it’s still pretty surreal,” Anderson said. “I still don’t think it has really hit me yet, but I couldn’t be happier.”

Anderson was a consistent weekend starter for the Bears in his first three seasons with the team, though his senior campaign was cut short after he had Tommy John surgery March 30.

“It’s kind of like a roller coaster of emotions for me,” Anderson said. “I wasn’t exactly sure what was going to happen with the whole Tommy John surgery because a lot of teams tend to stray away from kids who get surgery in the year of the draft.”

In 2017, Anderson led Bruno with 41 strikeouts over seven starts on the mound, and helped carry the team to a critical win against Penn when he notched a season-high eight strikeouts over five innings. Throughout his four seasons at Brown, Anderson recorded 130 total strikeouts. 

Head Coach Grant Achilles was impressed with Anderson’s work ethic, and said that “all of the hard work that (Anderson) put in over the last 18 months showed that he was able to be the player that (the Yankees) think can be a professional pitcher.”

Achilles added that Anderson was known for his leadership.

“In the weightroom and on the field, his development skyrocketed,” Achilles said. “He was able to show the guys what hard work was.”

Anderson is now the fourth Brown baseball player in three seasons to be selected in the MLB draft, following Austin French ’16, who went to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2016, and Christian Taugner ’17 and Rob Henry ’17, who were both drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in 2017.

“A big part of what our development focuses on is trying to prepare our players, regardless of career, for life after College Hill,” Achilles said. “The fact that we’ve had multiple players drafted over the past several years has really been an encouraging sign of the commitment that our players have shown to development (and to) the level of athletic abilities that our recruiting coaches have brought to our team.”

Anderson garnered attention from scouts when he played for the New England Collegiate Baseball League’s Newport Gulls last summer, an opportunity he described as “an awesome experience.”

For Anderson, the next step in the process is to continue to rehab in order to play in the Yankees’ minor league farm system.

“I’ve been rehabbing in the minor league facility in Tampa for the last week,” Anderson said. He will soon return home, where he will continue to rehab his elbow until August, when he will join the Yankees.

“I just need to get healthy, and (the Yankees) will decide what do with me around the spring,” he said.

“Kia’s Driving Creativity” Contest Will Inspire and Celebrate Design Leaders of Tomorrow

NEW YORK – JUNE 20, 2018 – Advertising Age, the leading source of news, intelligence and conversation for the global marketing and media community, announced today that it is partnering with Kia Motors America to spotlight design talent from accredited art schools across the country with the “Kia’s Driving Creativity” contest.

The contest is a challenge to design school students to produce a print ad that depicts an artistic representation of the award-winning Kia Stinger fastback sedan alongside a documentary-style video that explains the students’ vision behind the creative. The winner will receive an all-expense paid trip to the 2019 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, a $10,000 scholarship and a $5,000 grant which will be awarded to the winner’s school.

“At Kia, we are fueled by youth and design influences every aspect of the vehicles we produce. Styled and engineered by legends in the automotive industry, the Stinger brims with power, passion and performance and proves that Kia is different by design,” said Saad Chehab, vice president, marketing communications, Kia Motors America. “We are thrilled to share our passion for design and cultivate the innovators and stars of tomorrow.”

The contest will be announced by Ad Age on June 20, 2018, in France at the Ad Age Cannes Lawn Party. Entries will be accepted on the contest hub at www.kiasdrivingcreativity.com through September 30, 2018. Up to six finalists will be chosen by a panel comprised of Ad Age editorial board members and Kia Motors America brand executives and featured on AdAge.com. The grand prize winner will be chosen by the Ad Age online audience from October 15 – December 3, 2018. The winner will be announced on December 10, 2018.

“Our business celebrates youthful challengers, and we are proud to partner with Kia to help showcase the talents of the next generation of creative disruptors who can change the way we find meaning in marketing,” said Josh Golden, president and publisher, Ad Age.

About Kia Motors America
Headquartered in Irvine, California, Kia Motors America continues to top quality surveys and is recognized as one of the 100 Best Global Brands and 50 Best Global Green Brands by Interbrand. Kia serves as the “Official Automotive Partner” of the NBA and LPGA and offers a complete range of vehicles sold through a network of nearly 800 dealers in the U.S., including cars and SUVs proudly built in West Point, Georgia.*
For media information, including photography, visit www.kiamedia.com. To receive custom email notifications for press releases the moment they are published, subscribe at www.kiamedia.com/us/en/newsalert.

* The Sorento and Optima GDI (EX, SX & Limited and certain LX Trims only) are assembled in the United States from U.S. and globally sourced parts

About Ad Age
Ad Age is a daily must-read for an influential audience of decision makers and disruptors across the marketing and media landscape. Created in 1930 to cover a burgeoning industry with objectivity, accuracy, and fairness, Ad Age continues to be powered by award-winning journalism. Today, Ad Age is a global media brand focusing on curated creativity, data and analysis, people and culture, and innovation and forecasting. From vital print editions to must-attend events and innovative platform offerings, its industry-leading offerings include the coveted A-List & Creativity Awards, the Ad Age Next Conference, and proprietary data such as the Leading National Advertisers Report from the Ad Age Datacenter.

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A new eclectic American-style restaurant opened in one of Westwood’s oldest buildings, with a few modern updates.

Fellow opened on Glendon Avenue on June 11 after offering only delivery and catering services since February. The location also offers space for private events and parties.

The restaurant features a main dining floor with a photo booth, a mezzanine with a DJ booth, a private dining area and a bar. Philip Camino, one of the owners of the restaurant, said he thinks Fellow’s proximity to UCLA makes it perfect for student and faculty organizations looking to host events.

“There is sort of a limited amount of usable space on UCLA’s campus for private events, and if you do have spaces, they’re kinda cookie-cutter,” Camino said. “This is in close proximity to what people on the campus are kind of looking for because it’s unique.”

The building Fellow now resides in was originally constructed as a grocery store in 1929, and still retains many of its original elements, including high ceilings and brick walls, Camino added.

Camino said the interior structure of Fellow is what makes it a versatile space that guests can use for different kinds of events.

“You can do anything from having 200 people in here for Halloween parties to a 17-person private dinner on the floor,” Camino said. “We’ve had corporate events, private events, we’ve had an event with Vans and many other restaurant collaborations.”

Michael Bryant, the head chef at Fellow, said the restaurant’s American-eclectic food is inspired by a mixture of flavors from global spices, traditional comfort food and his roots in Virginia.

“My style is broad. I pull a bit of Indian, Latin American, Caribbean and other bold spices like that, but what we try to do is offer something of a comfort factor, nothing pretentious,” Bryant said. “The cuisine here is global, but local-market driven.”

Camino added the menu concept and restaurant are influenced by a combination of all the backgrounds of Fellow’s staff members.

“This is kind of a genesis of all of our experience, our travel, our tastes, so what you see here presented is kind of a synthesis of all those things together,” Camino said.

Customers at Fellow said they liked the layout of the restaurant, the decor and the different flavors the menu offered.

Chad Kehoe, a Santa Monica resident, said he thinks the restaurant offers small portion sizes, but is a good place to unwind.

“I feel like it’s going to be a good place to get a glass of wine after work or after school,” Kehoe said.

Andrew Hawthorne, who works at Primary Wave in Westwood, said he thinks Fellow will be a good place to hold business lunches because Westwood currently does not have many restaurants that offer formal sit-down meals.

“It’s mostly fast, quick stuff (in Westwood),” Hawthorne said. “I think for someone who works here, and we’re having a meeting and work in the same industry, it’s a nice place to go.”

Camino said that he is looking forward to seeing how Fellow fits into the Westwood and UCLA community.

“We’re just really happy to be in Westwood. We’re happy to be close to UCLA,” Camino said. “We want to continue to build with UCLA and the student body, and we’re super welcoming of anyone from the campus being in here.”

Contributing reports from Armando Carrillo, Daily Bruin contributor.