Two UCI professors honored

Two UC Irvine faculty members won major national science honors in recent weeks, with one receiving an award and the other a major research grant.

On June 20, the university announced that Tallie Z. Baram, a neurologist for the UCI School of Medicine, had won the Sen. Jacob Javits Award for the Neurosciences, which honors research into brain disorders. Meanwhile, Sheryl Tsai, an assistant professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, was named a Pew Scholar and given $240,000 over four years for her research.

Both of the honors were selective ones. Only six people received the Javits Award this year, while the Pew Scholars Program, which supports clinical researchers in the early stages of their careers, chose 15 nationwide recipients.

“I am very honored not only to be named as a Pew Scholar, but also to have my work recognized by my peers at UCI who nominated me for the award,” Tsai said in a release. “These awards are an immeasurable help to scientists at the beginning of their careers who can use the funds to further nascent research.”

Tsai’s work at UCI focuses on decoding polyketides, or chemical compounds that have hundreds of functions in nature and factor in pharmaceutical drugs.

Baram, an Israeli-born scholar, won the Javits Award for her research in seizures and infantile spasms. She is the ninth UCI researcher to win the prize.

“Dr. Baram has richly earned this award for her innovative epilepsy research, which is giving us both a better understanding of epilepsy disorders and therapeutic benefits to patients,” said Thomas Cesario, dean of the School of Medicine, in a release.