Sewage spill closes area of Newport Harbor...

Sewage spill closes area of Newport Harbor

A 100-gallon sewage spill forced Orange County Health Care Agency

officials to close Newport Harbor between J and L streets to swimmers

on Monday.

A line blockage in the city of Newport Beach’s sewage collection

system caused the spill.

Fourth of July forum set for Wednesday night

The West Newport Beach Assn. will hold a public forum on Fourth of

July festivities. The group has worked with Newport Beach Police,

city staff and the City Council to develop plans to make the day

safer than in years past. The forum will take place from 7 to 8 p.m.

Wednesday in Newport Beach City Hall Council Chambers.

Biological chemistry professor joins UCI

A biological chemistry professor renowned for identifying a gene

that suppresses cancer, joined the faculty of the UC Irvine College

of Medicine on June 11.

Wen-Hwa Lee entered the school’s department of biological

chemistry through the Bren Professors Endowment.

“Throughout his career, Wen-Hwa Lee has been a massive force in

the biological sciences,” said Thomas Cesario, dean of the college of

medicine, in a press release.

In the late 1980s, Lee identified and cloned the human

retinoblastoma gene, whose proteins control the division of normal

cells. While the loss of the gene has only been directly linked to

malignancy in the eye, Lee and his colleagues have shown that the

gene could be a factor in other cancers.

He has also investigated why DNA repair mechanisms can fail,

leading to the body’s accumulation of cancer-promoting mutations.

Through research in his laboratory, Lee has linked breast cancer

susceptibility genes to the process of DNA repair.

Before joining UCI, Lee was a professor of pathology at the

University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Holding the

Alice P. McDermott Distinguished University Chair, he was founding

director of the Institute of Biotechnology. He also founded and

chaired the department of molecular medicine there, one of the first

such departments in the country.

While holding these positions, he served on the Breast Cancer

Review Group, the National Institutes of Health Study Section on Cell

Biology and subcommittees for the National Cancer Institute. He is a

member of the Academia Sinica of the Republic of China and has

received the Presidential Award from the Society of Chinese

Bioscientists in America.

The Bren Professor Endowment was created in 1988 to help UCI attract and retain the nation’s top scholars. The endowment was

created with a gift from Donald Bren, chairman of the Irvine Co. and

supporter of two Claire Trevor professors in the arts.

Lee is the eighth Donald Bren professor. Lee received his

doctorate from UC Berkeley’s department of molecular biology in 1981.

His wife, Eva Y.H.P. Lee, joined UCI in 2002. She is a

chancellor’s professor in the departments of biological chemistry and

developmental cell biology.