News Archive

November 29, 2012 — A team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has shown for the first time how cancer cells control the ON/OFF switch of a program used by developing embryos to effectively metastasize in vivo, breaking free and spreading to other parts of the body, where they can proliferate and grow into secondary tumors.

November 29, 2012 — Research led by scientists at the University of California, San Diego and UC San Francisco Schools of Medicine examined the tumor-initiating events leading to pancreatic cancer (also called pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma or PDA) in mice. Their work, published on line November 29 in the journal Cancer Cell, may help in the search for earlier detection methods and treatments.

November 28, 2012 — UC San Diego Health System was honored with two separate “A” Hospital Safety Scores by The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit run by employers and other large purchasers of health benefits.

November 27, 2012 — In older adults, antipsychotic drugs are commonly prescribed off-label for a number of disorders outside of their Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved indications – schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. In a new study, four of the antipsychotics most commonly prescribed off label for use in patients over 40 were found to lack both safety and effectiveness.

November 27, 2012 — Fifteen girls from high schools around San Diego County have been meeting once a week since September to conceive, design, engineer and program a micro-experiment set to be deployed on the International Space Station (ISS) in March 2013. They are building a crystal growth experiment for a microgravity environment.

November 26, 2012 — Biologists at UC San Diego have demonstrated for the first time that marine algae can be just as capable as fresh water algae in producing biofuels. The scientists genetically engineered marine algae to produce five different kinds of industrially important enzymes and say the same process they used could be employed to enhance the yield of petroleum-like compounds from these salt water algae.

November 26, 2012 — The number of Ph.D. students participating in the Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3) has risen in the past year from six to 19, thanks to support from private donors and from the National Science Foundation through the ramp-up of its Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) grant to the UC San Diego center’s for engineering in cultural heritage diagnostics.

November 26, 2012 — The University of California, San Diego’s recognition of World AIDS Day will be expanded into a full week from Nov. 26 to Nov. 30 to focus attention on and raise awareness of the impact that HIV/AIDS has had in the San Diego community.

November 21, 2012 — In a new study, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues elsewhere, describe markers and a model that quantify how aging occurs at the level of genes and molecules, providing not just a more precise way to determine how old someone is, but also perhaps anticipate or treat ailments and diseases that come with the passage of time.

November 20, 2012 — Simulations that help doctors perform life-saving surgeries; a better way to model climate in urban areas; and optimized blood flow patterns for heart patients with pacemakers. Fluid dynamics researchers from the University of California, San Diego, are discussing their research on these topics—and many others—at the 65th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics here in San Diego Nov. 18 to 20. With about 2,300 contributed presentations, the APS/DFD annual conference is the largest scientific meeting of researchers in fluid dynamics.