News Archive - Michelle Franklin

Under Pressure: How Comb Jellies Have Adapted to Life at the Bottom of the Ocean

UC San Diego Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Itay Budin teamed up with researchers from around the country to study the cell membranes of ctenophores (“comb jellies”) and found they had unique lipid structures that allow them to live under intense pressure.

The Unexpected Connection Between Brewing Coffee and Understanding Turbulence

Using unconventional statistical mechanics to understand fluid dynamics, UC San Diego Professor of Physics Nigel Goldenfeld helped solve a 150 year old physics problem of how turbulent fluids move through a pipe.

A Change of Direction

UC San Diego Assistant Professor of Physics Mattia Serra and colleagues at Politecnico di Milano (Italy) have developed a new method that can manipulate the movement of embryonic cells using short-time attractors — a concept Serra had previously developed and adopted to help search and rescue operations at sea.

A New Gene-Editing System Tackles Complex Diseases

Current methods to model or correct mutations in live cells are inefficient, especially when multiplexing — installing multiple point mutations simultaneously across the genome. Researchers from the UC San Diego have developed new, efficient genome editing tools called multiplexed orthogonal base editors (MOBEs) to install multiple point mutations at once. Their work, led by Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Alexis Komor’s lab, appears in Nature Biotechnology.

Helping Transfer Students Thrive in Science

A four-week summer program at the University of California San Diego is designed to help incoming transfer students gain valuable research experience, meet peers and faculty, and build confidence before the school year starts. Launched last year as a pilot program, the Transfer Student Research Experience (T-Rex) program will start its second year this summer.

UC San Diego Professors Join Prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Two UC San Diego faculty members have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Stephan Haggard, Distinguished Research Professor of political science in UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, and Kenneth Intriligator, Distinguished Professor of physics.

Say Hello to Biodegradable Microplastics

Finding viable alternatives to traditional petroleum-based plastics and microplastics has never been more important. New research from scientists at UC San Diego and Algenesis shows that their plant-based polymers biodegrade — even at the microplastic level — in under seven months.

Staying in the Loop: How Superconductors are Helping Computers “Remember”

To advance neuromorphic computing, some researchers are looking at analog improvements--advancing not just software, but hardware too. Research from the UC San Diego and UC Riverside shows a promising new way to store and transmit information using disordered superconducting loops.

You Didn’t See It Coming: the Spontaneous Nature of Turbulence

UC San Diego Professor of Physics Nigel Goldenfeld has shown in theoretical models of turbulence that even molecular motions can create large-scale patterns of randomness over a defined period of time.