News Archive

October 16, 2014 — Waste No Water. You may have seen this mantra in the community already – it’s the City of San Diego’s ethos and effort to promote water conservation in the face of California’s severest drought on record. UC San Diego, which has long had ambitious water-saving goals, has been more than willing to help spread the word.

October 16, 2014 — After the industrial revolution and the Internet revolution, we are now poised for the robotics revolution. Influential robotics researchers and industry leaders made this prediction in many different ways Friday at the Contextual Robotics Technologies International Forum at UC San Diego. The speakers and more than 250 attendees gathered to reflect on what opportunities and challenges this revolution would bring, and how San Diego fits into this picture.

October 16, 2014 — Carol Vassiliadis did not attend college at the University of California, San Diego. Her two children did not go to UC San Diego. Her late husband, who battled cancer over a decade ago, was not treated at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. Yet, Vassiliadis has dedicated innumerable hours and considerable resources to the campus, including gifts totaling $8.5 million to the future UC San Diego Jacobs Medical Center. In honor of her support, the new facility—to be opened in 2016—will be home to the “A. Vassiliadis Family Hospital for Advanced Surgery.” A portion of Vassiliadis’ support was also matched by an anonymous donor as part of a Jacobs Medical Center Challenge grant, for a total of $12 million in gifts.

October 16, 2014 — Undergraduates at UC San Diego will now be able to pursue a bachelor of arts in global health – an increasingly popular new field of study and urgent social concern.

October 16, 2014 — Dustin Richmond, a third year graduate student in computer science and engineering, builds complex computer hardware systems with the power to process large data sets—such as the data involved with DNA sequencing. In his first year, Richmond worked with technology company Cognex to design an ultra-high-speed image processing pipeline—specifically for active 3D scanners—that could decompress and process 20,000 images per second.

October 13, 2014 — Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a new fusion protein found in approximately 15 percent of secondary glioblastomas or brain tumors. The finding offers new insights into the cause of this cancer and provides a therapeutic target for personalized oncologic care.

October 13, 2014 — Long assumed to be destructive to tissues and cells, “free radicals” generated by the cell’s mitochondria—the energy producing structures in the cell—are actually beneficial to healing wounds. That’s the conclusion of biologists at UC San Diego who discovered that “reactive oxygen species”—chemically reactive molecules containing oxygen, such as peroxides, commonly referred to as free radicals—are necessary for the proper healing of skin wounds in the laboratory roundworm C. elegans.

October 13, 2014 — Nearly 40 students from the University of California, San Diego – most of them affiliated with the university’s chapter of Women in Computing – attended the 2014 Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing Oct. 8-10 in Phoenix, AZ. For two of the undergraduates majoring in computer science, it was also an opportunity to showcase research projects in the area of sketch recognition.

October 10, 2014 — Black’s Beach is well-known among Southern California surfers and residents, renowned for its powerful waves and secluded location beneath the soaring Torrey Pines bluffs. But while never short on strong breaks and spectacular scenery, there has been one thing that Black’s always lacked: Public restroom facilities. Now, thanks to the combined efforts of the Blacks Beach Foundation, the University of California, San Diego and City of San Diego Lifeguards, the popular surf spot has its first ever environmentally-friendly restroom facility.

October 10, 2014 — Denise Moreno Ducheny, senior policy advisor at the University of California, San Diego School of International Relations and Pacific Studies’ Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, will be appointed to a key Obama Administration post, the White House announced Oct. 8.