William A. Peck, M.D., executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the medical school, announced her appointment. We are most pleased that Lynn Cornelius has accepted this newly created position. In her new position, Cornelius will work with department heads to ensure that junior faculty receive appropriate mentoring and the reviews that are essential for long-term professional development. The women, who suffered from emphysema, received the world's first double-lung transplants 12 years ago. Bizarre twist Scientists find first protein in central nervous system junctions By Linda Sage Scientists have identified the first protein needed for synapse formation in the central nervous system.
Synapses are connections between cells that make the nervous system function.
Due to a bizarre twist of evolution, the protein also appears essential for using a trace element called molybdenum. When the protein is missing, mice display symptoms of two life-threatening human diseases. In one, stiff baby syndrome, some synapses in the spinal cord fail to function properly. In the other, molybdenum cofactor deficiency, cells can't make proper use of molybdenum. One of his postdoctoral fellows, Guoping Feng, Ph.D., and Hartmut Tintrup, a graduate student from the lab of Heinrich Betz, M.D., at the Max-Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, Germany, are first authors of the paper, which appears in a recent issue of Science.