News Archive

July 12, 2018 — New research has uncovered a protein that enables the replication of arenaviruses, lethal pathogens spreading in West Africa. The research identified DDX3 as a key factor through its unexpected ability to dismantle normal human immune system defenses. The study may pave the way to new therapeutic treatments for arenaviruses and hemorrhagic fever.

July 12, 2018 — An international team of scientists has found the first evidence of a source of high-energy cosmic neutrinos, subatomic particles that can emerge from their sources and, like cosmological ghosts, pass through the universe unscathed, traveling for billions of light years from the most extreme environments in the universe to Earth.

July 11, 2018 — Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive, neurodegenerative condition that often begins with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), making early and repeated assessments of cognitive change crucial to diagnosis and treatment. In a paper in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, researchers led by scientists at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine found that repeated testing of middle-age men produced a “practice effect” which obscured true cognitive decline and delayed detection of MCI.

July 11, 2018 — A team of bioengineers at UC San Diego has answered a question that has long puzzled neuroscientists, and may hold a key to better understanding the complexities of neurological disorders: Why are axons, the spindly arms extending from neurons that transmit information from neuron to neuron in the brain, designed the way they are?

July 11, 2018 — The University of California San Diego has admitted 29,601 freshman and 9,353 transfer students out of a record 116,452 applicants. The number of freshman admits is down slightly (two percent) compared to last year’s record of 39,802 students; yet the university increased its offers of admission to first-generation students (up nearly five percent among freshman and transfers), with nearly one-third of the admitted class being the first in their family to attend a four-year college. In addition, the campus saw a 55 percent jump in admitted local, San Diego students, and admitted more underrepresented students compared to last year.

July 10, 2018 — The stuff the universe is made of. The origins of life. Dreams. Consciousness. Multiple universes. These are among the biggest questions in science. University of California San Diego Professor of Physics Kenneth Intriligator addresses challenging topics like these, and his theoretic efforts gained the attention of the Simons Foundation, which named him one of its 2018 Simons Investigators, announced in the July 10 edition of the “New York Times.”

July 10, 2018 — Science teachers from The Preuss School UC San Diego – Anne Artz, Shaoni Bandyopadhyay and Ted Kim – have been selected to participate in the Teacher Innovator Institute at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

July 10, 2018 — Researchers discovered an unexpected twist in the battle versus tumors. Tumors employ a protein called PD-L1 to blind T cells from functioning. PD-L1 protects tumors through a “molecular brake” known as PD-1. Researchers have found that some tumor cells display not only their PD-L1 weapon, but also the PD-1 brake, essentially becoming a neutralizing function. The unexpected mechanism could help determine whether a cancer patient will respond to immunotherapy.

July 9, 2018 — Many insects and animals have special proteins that act like car antifreeze to prevent ice from forming and spreading in their bodies amidst harsh winter temperatures. Scientists know about these antifreeze proteins (AFPs), but not so much about the mechanisms that make them work. Chemistry researchers at the University of California San Diego and the University of Utah, however, share new cold facts about AFP function in their July 9 article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Their research results could impact a variety of industrial and natural processes, including cloud formation, as well as future scientific studies.

July 9, 2018 — Through x-ray crystallography and kinase-inhibitor specificity profiling, University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers, in collaboration with researchers at Peking University and Zhejiang University, reveal that curcumin, a natural occurring chemical compound found in the spice turmeric, binds to the kinase enzyme dual-specificity tyrosine-regulated kinase 2 (DYRK2) at the atomic level. This previously unreported biochemical interaction of curcumin leads to inhibition of DYRK2 that impairs cell proliferation and reduces cancer burden.