DAVIS—Get ready! Get set! Aim!

The 12th annual Bruce Hammock Lab Water Balloon Battle will take place at  3 p.m., Thursday, July 24 on the north side of the Briggs Hall lawn.

Christophe Morisseau, associate research scientist, said the lab has 2000 water balloons to fill; anyone who wants to be a water warrior must participate in the filling, which starts at 1 p.m. by the Briggs loading dock.

All are invited. “Whoever wants to get wet,” Morisseau said. “Children and spouses are always welcome.”

In the past, the water warriors, led by Bruce Hammock and Morisseau, have included professors, researchers, visiting scientistis, postdoctoral scholars, graduate students and undergraduate students.

In addition to the water balloons, some favor squirt guns and toy pressurized water blasters. Others hoist half-filled buckets of water for sneak attacks.

So proficient are the water warriors that the “15 minutes of fame” often turns into “10 minutes of aim.”

Hammock, a distinguished professor of entomology who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, launched the water balloon fest in 2003 as a way to build camaraderie and gain relief from the heat.  

The Hammock lab works hard and plays hard. Hammock, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the Entomological Society of America, directs the campuswide Superfund Research Program, National Institutes of Health Biotechnology Training Program, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Combined Analytical Laboratory.

DAVIS--It's official. There's a new wasp species named “The Bockler Wasp,” thanks to a concerted drive to memorialize a beloved science teacher, and the taxonomy work of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, Davis, and its nonprofit BioLegacy Program.  

When award-winning biology teacher Donald “Doc Boc” Bockler of Arlington (Mass.) High School, died at age 65 of an apparent heart attack on Sept. 2, 2008 at his home, two of his former students from the Class of 1993--Tabatha Bruce Yang of the Bohart Museum and Margaret Dredge Moore of Arlington--launched a fundraising drive to name an insect after him.  

They selected a newly discovered species in the genus Lanthanomyia--being described by Bohart Museum senior museum scientist Steve Heydon. They sought the name, Lanthanomyia bockleri.   

Heydon recently published his work on Lanthanomyia bockleri Heydon in Zootaxa, a worldwide mega-journal for zoological taxonomists and the name is now official. 

“Once an article goes through the scientific review process and is published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, the name of the new species is official and immortalized in the scientific literature,” explained Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomology at UC Davis.

Kimsey described species-naming as “a unique, lasting form of dedication” and “a great honor both for the person giving the name and for the individual or other honoree whose name is being given to the species.”

Heydon said Lanthanomyia is a genus whose species are restricted to central and southern Chile and adjacent parts of Argentina. The new species is found in the Nothofagus forests of Patagonian Chile, including Chiloe Island. It belongs to a family of parasitic wasps called the Pteromalidae.  “Unlike other related species, this one has a unique dorsal attachment of the head to the thorax. If you see a specimen of Lanthanomyia with the neck attaching close to the top of the head, you know it is bockleri,” Heydon said. “Adults are reared from galls on Nothofagus and are thought to be parasites of gall-forming weevils.” 

 “Donald Bockler was fascinated by evolution and nature and he would have been proud,” said Yang, education and outreach coordinator at the Bohart Museum. Like many other Bockler students, she credits him for influencing her decision to pursue a career in science. 

Bockler, a member of the Massachusetts Hall of Fame for Science Educators, taught science for 35 years, including a short time in Peru and Puerto Rico before joining the Arlington High School faculty in 1972. He retired in 2003. 

His former students and teaching colleagues said the naming of the insect is a fitting tribute to a teacher who lived for and loved science and instilled the enthusiasm in his students. Wrote one colleague in an email to Yang and Moore: “His students were blessed by his passion and devotion to inquiry learning.  As a friend and mentor, he left an indelible mark on my career as a teacher and scholar… Most importantly, he helped us all believe in the value of our work.” 

Bockler's obituary in the Boston Globe related that he “found his place among the subjects he loved and the students he taught. During his career he led classes in all levels of biology, environmental science, and earth science.” 

“...He was past president of the Massachusetts Association of Biology Teachers (MABT), was a reader for the AP biology and Environmental Science exams, and presented at state and national conferences… He received an award for Excellence in Environmental Education in 2003 and was recognized by Tufts University for excellence in mentoring practice teachers.

“Once retired in 2003, he continued working in science education, writing curricula for the Urban Ecology Institute, home-schooling science students, and becoming a teaching assistant at Harvard University Extension. Recently he had begun working with the Encyclopedia of Life Project.

“His essence is reflected in comments made by students and teachers: "The learning community has lost one of its greats." "A gentleness is passed." "He was loved by all and will be sorely missed as our world has lost one of its finest teachers and human beings."  

He and his wife, Marzina, had no children.  

MABT established a memorial scholarship in his name and wrote on its website:  “Don's energy and enthusiasm for teaching were an inspiration to us all.  Don was a dedicated educator who taught for over 30 years at Arlington High School and before that as a Peace Corps volunteer in South America. His students learned their lessons to a high standard because of his outstanding teaching.  In addition to his dedicated service to MABT, he chaired the Massachusetts Outstanding Biology Teaching Award Committee for years.   Don was an avid reader; his personal library held more than 5000 volumes, the diversity of which reflected his many varied interests and his inquisitive mind.   

The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 Academic Surge on Crocker Lane, established its BioLegacy program  “to support species discovery and naming, research and teaching activities of the museum through sponsorships,” Kimsey said.  

 “At a time when support for taxonomic and field research is shrinking, researchers find it increasingly difficult to discover, classify and name undescribed species. Yet there are thousands yet to be discovered. Taxonomy is the basis of all biology and without species discovery and naming much of the world's biodiversity will remain unknown and therefore unprotectable.”

Agriculture and human settlement are expanding, and according to conservative estimates, around 17,500 species become extinct every year. “Most of these have not even been discovered, let alone researched or exploited,” Kimsey said. “This loss has ecological and economic consequences which, though difficult to measure, are undoubtedly of major significance. Extinction is forever!”

The Bohart Museum of Entomology posts information about naming rights and insects needing names on its BioLegacy website. A minimum sponsorship of $2,500 is requested. Participation in the BioLegacy Program is open to the public (of legal age) and scientists in research organizations. Taxonomists are expressly invited to join the BioLegacy Program. The Bohart Museum is a non-profit organization and donations are tax-deductible.

The BioLegacy Program:

• provides donors the opportunity to sponsor and give a scientific name to a newly discovered insect species; 
• provides researchers responsible for identifying the new species with names provided by donors;
• ensures that names provide by donors are used in a scientifically sound and scientifically correct manner in accordance with International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature rules;
• provides donors with documentary proof of their name for the new species in question; ensures that donated funds go to the support of taxonomical research in the Bohart Museum of Entomology;
• publishes donor-named species and information about the research on its website

The Bohart Museum, dedicated to teaching, research and public service, houses nearly eight million specimens and is the seventh largest insect collection in North America.  It is named for noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007).

See research pager in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DAVIS--Researchers at UC Davis, University of Massachusetts and Harvard Medical School have created a combination drug that controls both tumor growth and metastasis. By combining a COX-2 inhibitor, similar to Celebrex, and an epoxide hydrolase (sEH) inhibitor, the drug controls angiogenesis (blood vessel formation), limiting a tumor's ability to grow and spread. The study appears July 14 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We've been studying the effects of COX and sEH inhibitors, both by themselves and in combination, for several years,” said senior author and UC Davis Distinguished Professor Bruce Hammock. “We were surprised to find that the dual inhibitor was more active than higher doses of each compound, either individually or together. By combining the two molecules into one we got much greater potency against several diseases and completely unique effects in terms of blocking tumor growth and metastasis.”

Both COX and sEH enzymes control lipid signaling, which has long been associated with inflammation, cell migration, proliferation, hypertension and other processes. COX inhibitors block production of inflammatory and pain-inducing lipids, while sEH inhibitors preserve anti-hypertensive, anti-inflammatory and analgesic compounds. Separate COX and sEH inhibitors were previously found to work together in reducing inflammation and neuropathic pain. 

After testing individual COX-2 and sEH inhibitors, the team synthesized the drug (PTUTB), the first combined COX-2/sEH inhibitor. They then tested the dual inhibitor against human lung and breast tumors, both in vitro and in mice. They found that PTUTB blocked angiogenesis, inhibiting the proliferation of endothelial cells, which are critical to blood vessel formation. This in turn limited tumor growth and metastasis, reducing lung and breast tumor growth by 70 to 83 percent.

In breast and lung cancers, the dual inhibitor blocked angiogenesis, which blocked the growth of solid tumors,” said Hammock. “This represents a new mechanism to control blood vessel and tumor growth.”

Robert Weiss, a co-author and professor of nephrology at UC Davis, added that the combination drug achieved the results with minimal side effects and no cardiovascular or gastrointestinal effects.

“This is particularly important when administering COX-2 inhibitors, which have well-known cardiovascular risks,” he said. “However, the added sEH inhibitor appears to block COX-2's side effects.”

The research was initiated by first author Guodong Zhang when he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Hammock laboratory. Zhang previously demonstrated that sEH inhibitors improve the power of omega-3 fatty acid (fish oil) diets to reduce tumor growth and metastasis, and implicated epoxides of the dietary supplement DHA as the causative agent.

By advancing a new anti-angiogenic compound, the study extends the work of renowned Harvard Medical School physician and researcher Judah Folkman, who illuminated the importance of angiogenesis to tumor growth, inspiring a new class of anti-cancer drugs. Two of the study's authors, Dipak Panigrahy and Mark Kieran, previously worked with Folkman at Harvard Medical School.

Though the research was focused exclusively on cancer, researchers said the dual compound could benefit other conditions, such as macular degeneration.

“If we move beyond cancer, this drug combination could block a number of pathologies, ranging from cardiac hypertrophy to neuropathic pain,” said Hammock. “The compound looks quite powerful for a number of conditions.”

The research teams are continuing their work on several fronts.

“One member of our research team already has made more potent inhibitors with more drug-like properties,” Hammock said. “We are looking at the molecules for a variety of indications alone and in combination, including for kidney disease, fibrotic diseases, pancreatic and colon cancer and other problems.” The molecules are patented by the University of California and are available for license and testing.

Co-author Jun-Yan Liu, who performed the analytical chemistry for the study while a postgraduate researcher at UC Davis, is now examining the efficacy of the compounds in kidney disease and gout at a laboratory in the Shanghai Tenth Peoples Hospital.

“One of the most exciting things about this project was the ability to work with experts in multiple fields to find new drug class and new mechanism that promises to actually help people with cancer,” Liu said.   

Other researchers included Sung Hee Hwang, Jun Yang, Lisa M. Mahakian, Yanru Wang, Elizabeth S. Ingham, Sarah Tam, Robert H. Weiss and Katherine W. Ferrara, all of UC Davis, and Hiromi I. Wettersten, formerly of UC Davis and now at UC San Diego.

The research was supported by NIEHS R01 ES02710, Superfund P42 ES04699, NIH/NIOSH U54 OH07550, R01 CA134659, R01 CA112356, R01 CA103828, NIH contract HHSN268201000043C, Research Investments in the Sciences and Engineering (RISE) Program of UC Davis, R01 CA148633, R01 CA135401, R01 DK082690, the Stop and Shop Pediatric Brain Tumor Fund, the C.J. Buckley Pediatric Brain Tumor Fund, the Medical Service of the US Department of Veterans Affairs and the American Asthma Society.--UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, UC Davis Health System Public Affairs

(Editor's Note: Bruce Hammock has a joint appointment with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. He directs the campuswide Superfund Research Program, National Institutes of Health Biotechnology Training Program, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Combined Analytical Laboratory.)

Systematic entomologists Peter Cranston and Penny Gullan, who retired as emeriti professors in 2010 from the University of California, Davis, and are now living “back home” in Canberra, Australia, have just finished reviewing and revising their popular textbook, The Insects: An Outline of Entomology (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).” 

The fifth edition will be published later this year. The expected date is prior to the Entomological Society of America's annual meeting, to be held Nov. 16-19 in Portland, Ore.

“The economics and contractual obligations placed upon textbook authors require major updates every four to five years, retired or not,” Cranston said. “Thus for the past year we have been reviewing the whole field of entomology and our retirements have been ‘on hold.'” They delivered the completed fifth edition to Wiley in July. 

What's new? Most changes are associated with the results of human activities, including warming of the planet but also including global trade, they said. Thus, they added a new chapter entitled ‘Insects in a Changing World.' 

“Insects clearly respond to changes in climate, and this is of immediate concern for the spread of insect-borne diseases affecting crops, domestic animals and people,” they wrote in an email. “However, at least of equal significance are the changes in insect ranges associated with global commerce (‘free trade') that brings many accidental passenger insects that impact agriculture, health and the natural environment. This situation is caricatured on the front cover of this new edition, in a tribute to Canadian insect illustrator Barry Flahey. Barry should be known to entomologists as the artist responsible for those wonderful whimsical posters (and Christmas cards) featuring medleys of anthropomorphised bugs.  Karina McInnes, the artist for all previous  editions of the textbook, went well outside her comfort zone to pay tribute to Barry's style in highlighting several pest insects known to hitch-hike via our transportation system."

Unforeseen by the authors in earlier editions were how many invasive pests would damage timber and landscape trees. Therefore, they expanded their text on biosecurity, which involves  increased surveillance at ports, airports, and land borders. This growing industry, they pointed out, requires personnel trained in entomology: without such vigilance, pests spread ‘without borders' in a homogeneous agricultural world.

“Also molecular genetic techniques have become increasingly sophisticated and have transformed so many areas of entomology. Molecular studies have particularly informed our ideas of evolutionary relationships at all levels, and all phylogenies have had to be modified between book editions. Knowledge of the relationships among orders has been strengthened in the past five years, and there is much less uncertainty. For example, the hexapods, to which the insects belong, clearly evolved from within the Crustacea, thus forming a group Pancrustacea. Closer to tips of insect phylogenetic trees, the true diversity at species level is being revealed, including with the use of ‘DNA barcoding'. Modelling techniques of increasing sophistication allow exploration of the rate of molecular evolution, which in conjunction with better-studied fossil insects, provide increasingly reliable estimates of the tempo of insect evolution over the past 400 million years.  

Also in their new edition, they describe the relative ease and ever-lower costs of genomics as an “explosion” in “whole genomes” across a diversity of species, allowing comparative studies and better understanding of the genetic cascades and controllers that shape the physiology and morphology of insects. “ The authors present selectively from such studies – "they are so numerous and yet remain exploratory and not definitive across the whole of the hexapods." 

“A constant feature of the design of the book has been the use of ‘boxes' for material tangential to the main text but of topical (although perhaps ephemeral) importance.”  For example, in the opening chapter they give recognition to the dynamism provided to entomology by ‘non-mainstream' insect lovers, from recording schemes and citizen scientists to the managers of insect houses. Inevitably updating involved reporting in new boxes the effects of ever-more insects spreading and damaging plants of interest to humans, namely ornamental and environmental trees, including palms, and most worryingly, high quality Arabica coffee. Information from some boxes from previous editions has been downsized and merged with the text or discarded. 

Now that their fifth edition is finished, Cranston and Gullan say they are returning to their "retirement activities," that is, research on the systematics and ecology of their favorite insects--scales and midges.

Cranston holds a Ph.D. in entomology from the University of London. His research interests systematics, ecology and biogeography of aquatic insects, particularly the Chironomidae (non-biting midges). 

Gullan received her doctorate in entomology from Monash University, Australia. Her research interests are systematics (taxonomy and phylogeny) and biology of scale insects (Hemiptera: Coccoidea), especially soft scales, eriococcids, margarodids and mealybugs; ant-coccoid interactions; insect-plant interactions involving sap-sucking insects, especially gall-inducing taxa.