Goldstein helps develop supermagnets using materials that mimic iron-nickel found in meteorites

Joseph Goldstein, Distinguished Professor in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, is part of a research team trying to produce an iron-nickel alloy that is currently only found in meteorites, for use in making supermagnets. The goal of the research is to develop bulk quantities of commercially viable, environmentally sound supermagnets, which can be used in electric vehicles, wind-turbine generators and many other machines.
 
The first phase of the work is funded by an 18-month, $3.3-million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy program.

After $12m NIH-funded renovation, Lederle labs re-open for research

Campus officials this week praised the completion of a two-year, $12.3 million laboratory renovation in the Lederle Graduate Research Center, saying the project will enhance research in the biological and physical sciences and make the campus competitive nationally.
 
They celebrated the reopening of 15,000 square feet of lab space that was rebuilt with $7.1 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 and $5.2 million from the university.
 
Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy said he was very impressed that the campus

Biochemists trap chaperone machine in action, opening path to possible new cancer treatment

Molecular chaperones have emerged as exciting new potential drug targets, because scientists want to learn how to stop cancer cells, for example, from using chaperones to enable their uncontrolled growth. Now a team of biochemists led by Lila Gierasch has deciphered key steps in the mechanism of the Hsp70 molecular machine by “trapping” this chaperone in action, providing a dynamic snapshot of its mechanism.
 
She and colleagues describe this work in the current issue of Cell. Gierasch’s research on Hsp70 chaperones is supported by a long-running grant to her lab from NIH’s National Institute

Landscape Management, Stockbridge students spread a little holiday cheer

Poinsettias are springing up in offices across campus, but they’re not being brought by elves — the holiday plants are part of a new horticultural program launched by Landscape Management and employing the skills of students from the Stockbridge School of Agriculture.
 
Late last week, Landscape Management began distributing the first of some 220 poinsettias to various departments.

Afro-American Studies Department recognized by American Historical Association

The W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies is being awarded this year’s American Historical Association's Equity Award recognizing success in training and placing nearly 100 percent of its minority historians in academia.
 
The award was announced in the November issue of Perspectives on History, and will be presented on Jan. 4 at the AHA annual meeting in New Orleans, prior to the president’s address by William Cronon of the University of Wisconsin.
 
“The association is extremely pleased to confer this honor on so deserving a recipient,” AHA executive director James Grossman

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