UCLA professors receive science fellowship honors
By Tatiana Botton
Two UCLA professors have been named fellowship winners for the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, out of a pool
of more than 140,000 members.
Professors Roger Detels and John Campbell were awarded the
fellowships for their scientific work in genetics and disease
research.
"It’s an honor for them to be recognized by their own peers, and
to be elevated for their effort toward the advancement of science,"
said Helen Cooper, senior communication officer of the 120-year-old
association.
UCLA had two winners among 297 scientists selected nationwide,
with 12 from UC Irvine and nine from UC Berkeley.
Association spokespersons said they chose to award Detels for
his profound analysis of HIV.
"It’s nice to be recognized, but when I look back at my 160
publications, and my most innovative publications have always been
difficult to publish … I don’t know if this will change after
this nomination," he said.
Campbell was honored for his contributions to the field of
evolutionary biology, particularly how genetics influences species
evolution.
Both said they expect their nominations will add credibility to
their scientific ideas in the future and that those ideas will be
more accepted.
"There is unfortunately no money associated (with the award),"
Campbell admitted.
Campbell’s research centered on what he called the "complexity"
of evolution, which he said others simplify.
"What I’ve always been interested in is how things really evolve
and how complex the process of evolution is, not how simple,"
Campbell said.
As he explained, human evolution was the result of "complicated"
and "powerful" forces, rather than simple mechanisms.
"People have generated this very simple model of natural
selection of evolution, then they sort of taught it and believed
it," he said.
Campbell said evolution is a very important aspect of
biology.
"We have just developed the genetic techniques for being able to
change genes in the organism. We are going to be able to rewrite
our genes. People don’t see the importance of that. What we are
going to do essentially, is control our evolution," he said.
The more one understands about genetics, the sooner the
mysteries of the human body become clear, such as mental ability
and disease resistance, he continued.
While Campbell mentioned fighting ailments such as HIV and AIDS
by genetics, Detels was honored with this award for just this
research.
"Professor Campbell is going one step beyond me. He is talking
about changing the genes, and I’m talking about understanding what
the relation of resistance and genetics is," Detels said.
Before and since he arrived at UCLA in the 1970s, Detels worked
on different illnesses ranging from German measles to Japanese
encephalitis. But since the mid 1980s, his studies have focused on
HIV and AIDS.
After a great deal of research on the diseases resulted in
inconclusive data, Detels said he and his colleagues developed a
new hypothesis as to why some people are affected while others are
not.
"We are not going to find a vaccine for at least five years or
maybe for another 10 years. It’s then important to understand the
different mechanism of the virus and try to find a different
strategy to make people resistant to the virus," Detels said.
Some individuals who are repeatedly exposed to HIV are not
always the ones who get infected, he recalled finding. Faced with
the question of how this was possible, Detels confirmed the
existence of genetically susceptible individuals who will get
infected at the first contact, and resistant individuals who will
maybe never get infected.
"If we can elucidate the differences, we can make susceptible
individuals resistant," Detels said, which could be helpful to
people including health workers and prostitutes.
"Prostitutes are prostitutes for economic necessity. If at least
you can offer those women and men a protection or at least provide
them with resistance, that will be like a vaccine. Not like a
traditional one made by the virus components, but it will be a
different strategy for trying to produce the same resistance," he
said.
While both fellowship winners have been at UCLA for 25 years,
they have different research techniques. As opposed to Campbell,
who only works alone, Detels prefers a "collaborative" work
environment.
Detels said that at UCLA, he has been able to meet scientific
experts not found at other universities.
"Epidemiology and public health are not always held in high
regard by laboratory scientists. Here at UCLA, I’ve gone to people
with ideas and they have listened. This doesn’t happen everywhere
 to be open to ideas no matter where they came from," he
said.