Pallotta, UCLA launch new AIDS project
Businessman Dan Pallotta and the UCLA AIDS Institute have joined
forces to launch the AIDS Eradication Project, a new partnership
aimed at raising private funds to support UCLA scientists’
efforts to create an HIV vaccine and cure for the disease.
“In the United States alone, AIDS has stolen the lives of
more than 400,000 men, women and children,” said Pallotta,
co-chair of the project with entertainment attorney Steve Warren.
“That’s enough names to fill the Capitol Mall with
eight Vietnam memorials. We can’t stand by and watch this
disease kill off entire continents of people, as it is doing in
Africa and will soon do in India.” Pallotta made the
announcement at a private reception in his Hollywood Hills home on
May 16. He is the founder and president of Pallotta TeamWorks, the
cause-marketing group that produces the Alaska AIDS Vaccine Ride,
Tanqueray American AIDS Rides and Avon Breast Cancer 3-Days.
“We are focusing beyond clinical treatment,” Dr. Irvin
S.Y. Chen, director of the UCLA AIDS Institute and an
internationally renowned virologist, said in a statement. “We
are working toward expediting a vaccine that will result in the end
of AIDS, just as it did for polio.” Some 40 people attended
the event, including prominent leaders in the Los Angeles gay
community, who mingled with scientific researchers from the UCLA
AIDS Institute. The evening raised a total of $87,000, including a
$25,000 pledge each from Pallotta and Warren, and $25,000 from
couple Dr. Ignacio Valdes and Damon Wolf.
Teacher training focuses on DNC In an effort to
help make the national presidential conventions more relevant and
accessible to schoolchildren, UCLA sponsored a half-day training
session for Los Angeles teachers on how to incorporate the election
process into their regular social studies curriculum.
“Decision 2000: Models for Teaching the Election
Process” included discussions with executives of the groups
organizing and hosting the Democratic National Convention. Speakers
included Lydia Camarillo, CEO of Democratic National Convention
Committee 2000,· Noelia Rodriguez, president and CEO of L.A.
Convention 2000 and John Rogers, director of research for
UCLA’s Center X, which works to improve student achievement
through teacher training and administrative reforms.
Student demand grows for hi-tech education With
high-tech continuing to grow as a hot job market, student demand
for higher education programs in computer science has increased in
dramatic proportions. UC Irvine’s Department of Information
and Computer Science is the largest computer science department in
the UC system and the third largest west of the Rocky Mountains.
The national hi-tech magazine eWeek (formerly PCWeek) recently
named UCI as one of the top 10 universities for information
technology education. “We’re doing all that we can to
meet the demand by students and industry,” said Michael
Pazzani, ICS chair. “Along with the new students, the
department is growing at a rapid pace in every respect–in new
faculty, more facilities and increased corporate support.”
Corporate assistance has helped ICS fill the eight new faculty
positions. California’s hi-tech companies provided funding and
equipment in the form of start-up packages for these new faculty. A
start-up package covers the costs of securing new research
equipment and hiring graduate student research assistants. Compiled
from Daily Bruin staff and wire reports.