Veritas, Vol. 44, No. 06, March 2002

              University helps the City of Coral Gables map its future
It was a sight that would have made Coral Gables founder George Merrick proud: the city he founded working together with the University it grew up with.
It was called the Coral Gables charrette, an intensive public planning session conducted to produce a blueprint that could chart the future course of one of Florida’s preeminent town centers.
For five days and nights, some 1,500 merchants, business owners, designers, developers, and residents met at the Coral Gables Youth Center to sketch out the most thorough reevaluation of the City Beautiful’s downtown since it was laid out by
Merrick and his planners 80 years ago.
The ambitious undertaking didn’t happen overnight. The process was a coordinated team effort between Coral Gables and University officials that started in earnest last September. Key UM figures from the School of Architecture, Real Estate, and Facilities Administration formed a Working Group that planned and organized everything from pre-charrette meetings and PowerPoint presentations to schedules, community outreach, Web site materials, and logistics.
“We were sort of the mother ship for moving the process along,” says Betty Fleming, special projects coordinator for Facilities Administration.
“We not only facilitated the organization of the charrette, but we were there throughout the five days of meetings to provide assistance,” says Univer-
Gables had a desire to bring it about,” says Anderson. “With UM’s involvement, we were able to bring a government entity and educational institution that have been linked throughout the city’s history together and tap into the best of both.”
The five days of intensive planning produced a sweeping plan with a central theme of creating a lively downtown area that would lure people out of their cars, homes, and offices and into Coral
of commission meetings,” adds Bohl, himself a Gables resident.
The charrette was inspired in part by residents’ fears that large-scale development and traffic are starting to threaten the look and feel of their downtown. The charrette design team, led by School of Architecture Dean Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, made several proposals that mirrored citizens’ concerns. Among them:
• “Live-work” units where people would have an office or store on the
"That's what Merrick probably envisioned when he helped create the University 75 years ago—
two great institutions working together as a team for the benefit of all."
School of Architecture Dean Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk addresses an audience of citizens, business owners, and developers during a charrette meeting.
sity campus planner Janet Gavarrete.
“That’s what Merrick probably envisioned when he helped create the University 75 years ago—two great institutions working together as a team for the benefit of all,” says Vice President of Real Estate Sergio Rodriguez, a member of the Working Group.
Coral Gables Vice Mayor Maria Anderson, who conceived of the idea for the charrette, called the University’s role in the five-day intensive planning session “the magic glue that made everything happen. The City of Coral
Gables’ public spaces. Among the recommendations voiced by citizens and city officials: Surround City Flail with greenery. Widen sidewalks and provide more shade. Make parking more accessible. Turn Alhambra Circle into a tree-shaded concourse reminiscent of old Barcelona.
“It was a real community-oriented charrette,” says Chuck Bohl, charrette project manager and a research associate professor in the School of Architecture. “The people who attended those meetings have a longtime connection with the community and a real love for it. So we heard a lot of good feedback. I think it’s probably the first time in quite a while that citizens and elected officials all sat down and talked about a vision for the future of the city outside
ground level and live in an apartment above it.
• A stricter Mediterranean building ordinance with clear design guidelines.
Now that the charrette is over, what’s next? An executive summary of the charrette was presented to the City Commission in February, and City of Coral Gables officials are working with the University in developing a final report, due in late March. Another public meeting is planned in April for additional feedback.
“We’re looking forward to working with Coral Gables in producing the final report, as well as in supporting the city in its efforts here at the School of Architecture,” says Plater-Zyberk. “It’s about preserving, enhancing, and refining. Downtown Coral Gables is a treasure. But it can be even better.”
Medical researcher uncovers a key to fighting viruses
In a significant medical finding that moves researchers closer to understanding one of the mechanisms of cancer and how to treat it, University of Miami scientist Beatriz Fontoura has discovered an important step in repairing the damage caused by viruses. Her discovery is featured in the international journal Science.
Working with a protein that is involved in some types of leukemia, Fontoura, an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology at the School of Medicine, and her colleagues discovered two important pieces of information about viral infection and the response to interferon. Others had shown that the virus interferes with the cell’s genetic program by binding with a type of protein nicknamed a “nup,” or nuclear pore complex protein, thereby halting
the flow of molecular information to and from the nucleus of the cell.
First, the group found that the interferon molecule, released by the body to defend against viral attack, causes an increase in the population of this “nup” protein. The team’s second finding was that this increased production of “nups” can overcome this block in the flow of nuclear traffic.
“It’s almost as though the virus stopped all the trucks that were used for transport and then interferon stimulated the production of more trucks,” says Richard J. Bookman, associate dean of the School of Medicine. “Previously we didn’t know that you could overcome the virus in this way.”
“This is a key cellular regulatory step,” says Fontoura, who collaborated on this research with 1999 Nobel Prize winner Gunter Blobel of Rockefeller University. “It might have an
important impact for other viruses.”
Interferon, which interferes with the division of cancer cells and can slow tumor growth, is used to treat several kinds of cancer and other diseases.
“This is a really exciting finding that has major implications for understanding how cells respond to a viral infection,” says James D.
Potter, chairman of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology and codirector of the School of Medicine’s Executive Office of Research Leadership.
“This also explains a major mechanism that is involved in the well-known antiviral effect of interferon.
“Since these proteins that Fontoura is studying have also been shown to be involved in leukemia, this work has
broad implications for the field of cancer research,” says Potter.
Fontoura’s work in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology and the UM/Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center is funded partly by the Florida Biomedical Research Program. The program uses proceeds from the 1997 settlement of Florida’s lawsuit against the tobacco companies to support biomedical research on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of tobacco-related diseases.
Beatriz Fontoura in her lab.