Bissell

Bissell Named Winner
of Komen Research Award

The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation recently announced the 2003 winners of its Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction. The award recognizes leading scientists for significant work that advances basic research concepts or clinical application in the fields of breast cancer. This year’s awardees are Walter Churchill Willett, of Harvard University’s Department of Nutrition, and Mina J. Bissell, director of the Life Sciences Division at Berkeley Lab. Go here to read the Komen Foundation press release.

Mehta		Wiel		Sathaye

A delegation from India visited the Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division last week to discuss the possibilities of increased cooperation between India and the U.S. in energy efficiency R&D and program development. The delegation was led by Jayawanti Mehta, India’s minister of state power. They met with EETD’s Stephen Wiel and Jayant Sathaye, who described their research and discussed potential areas of collaboration in energy-efficient standards and labeling, government procurement, and bringing efficient windows, lighting, cooling and other technologies to India.

A long-anticipated report has found that managers of federal research labs should regularly compete to continue running the science facilities, a judgment that could have a major impact on the University of California. Among its most controversial conclusions is that Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos labs contracts should be bid separately, which would likely make competition easier for an outsider and harder for UC. The report by the so-called Blue Ribbon Commission found that competition would benefit the labs and recommended a process to better link lab performance to the competition decision. Full story.

Members of the two houses of the U.S. Congress last week reached agreement on a $328.1 billion omnibus spending measure that funds 11 departments and numerous agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The bill, which includes modest, though respectable, increases to both agencies, faces a very uncertain future when the full House and possibly Senate convene briefly next week to consider it. Full story.