Four years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Brown University will hold a series of exhibitions, events, and musical tributes to raise money and awareness of the region’s ongoing rebuilding efforts.

Gilad Barnea, assistant professor of neuroscience, has been awarded a $1.3-million grant by the National Institutes of Health, given to a select group of researchers who pursue “high-risk, high-reward” research. He will try to develop a method that could help scientists produce more targeted treatments for a number of diseases without side effects.

Matthew Gutmann, professor of anthropology and director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Brown University, has been named vice president for international affairs. Gutmann will begin his new duties Sept. 1, 2009, succeeding David Kennedy.

A team of Brown University scientists has pinpointed why carbon nanotubes tend to block a critical signaling pathway in neurons. It’s not the tubes, the team finds, but the metal catalysts used to form the tubes. The discovery means carbon nanotubes without metal catalysts may be useful in treating human neurological disorders. Results appear in Biomaterials.

The study of eipigenetic variability in cells and tissues could someday help diagnose diseases more precisely and provide more targeted treatments for chronic ailments. Details, summarized by Brown University researchers and others, are published online in the latest edition of PLoS Genetics.

Brown University researchers have determined that Candida albicans, a human fungal pathogen, pursues both same-sex and the more conventional opposite-sex mating. The findings are published in the August 2009 edition of the journal Nature.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded more than $7 million to the Center for Restorative and Regenerative Medicine, renewing funding for another five years. The center is a collaborative effort between the Providence VA Medical Center, Brown University, and others.

The David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University presents Kirsten Hassenfeld: Recent Sculpture, an exhibition of large-scale ornate paper sculptures, from Saturday, Aug. 29, through Sunday, Nov. 1, 2009.

Michael Frank, of the Brown Institute for Brain Science, has determined that variations of three different genes in the brain can predict whether individuals will make certain choices. His work,  in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Arizona, will be published in the August 2009 edition of Nature Neuroscience.

Researchers from Brown University, the Harvard School of Public Health, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, and the University of Edinburgh say Brazil’s push for inexpensive, low-cost HIV and AIDS treatments has helped contain the virus during the last 20 years. Details will be published in the July/August issue of Health Affairs.

A key constituent in New England salt marshes may be imperiled by global warming, a new study has found. Experiments by Brown University researchers show that warmer temperatures cause a spectrum of plants known as forbs to disappear. Results are published in Ecology Letters.

Rashid Zia, Assistant Professor of Engineering, has been named a winner of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers. The winners were announced by the White House this week.