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News Archive - Biological Sciences

Cracking How ‘Water Bears’ Survive the Extremes

October 1, 2019

Scientists have gained a new understanding of how ultra-resilient tardigrades, or “water bears,” are protected in extreme conditions. The researchers discovered that a protein named Dsup binds and forms a protective cloud against extreme survival threats such as radiation damage.

Biologists Untangle Growth and Defense in Maize, Define Key Antibiotic Pathways

September 18, 2019

Studying natural defenses in maize, a staple of diets around the world, UC San Diego biologists describe how they combined an array of scientific approaches to clearly define six genes that encode enzymes responsible for the production of key maize antibiotics known to control disease resistance.

Synthetic Biologists Extend Functional Life of Cancer-Fighting Circuitry in Microbes

September 5, 2019

Bioengineers and biologists at the University of California San Diego have developed a method to significantly extend the life of gene circuits used to instruct microbes to do things such as produce and deliver drugs, break down chemicals and serve as environmental sensors.

Supercomputers Pave the Way for New Machine Learning Approach

August 29, 2019

Researchers at SDSC, LANL, and UNC Chapel Hill have developed a machine learning approach called transfer learning that lets them model novel materials by learning from data collected about millions of other compounds.

UC San Diego Receives $9 Million in Grants to Pinpoint Cellular Cause of Type 1 Diabetes

August 13, 2019

UC San Diego School of Medicine has been awarded $9 million to fund research projects using human pluripotent stem cells, CRISPR and human organoids to dissect beta cell defects and create a human cell model of type 1 diabetes aimed at identifying the cellular actions leading to disease onset.

Biologists Pioneer First Method to Decode Gene Expression

August 12, 2019

Biologists have developed the first system for determining gene expression based on machine learning. Considered a type of Rosetta Stone, the new method leverages algorithms trained on a set of known plant genes. The method carries implications across biology, from drug discovery to plant breeding.

Evolutionary Gene Loss May Help Explain Why Only Humans are Prone to Heart Attacks

July 22, 2019

University of California San Diego School of Medicine scientists say the loss of a single gene two to three million years ago in our ancestors may have resulted in a heightened risk of cardiovascular disease in all humans as a species, while also setting up a further risk for red meat-eating humans.

With Landmark Gift, UC San Diego Will Map Compassion in the Brain, then Prove its Power

July 22, 2019

The T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion at UC San Diego will investigate the neurological basis of compassion, design a compassion-focused medical curriculum and develop new methods to protect and promote the well-being of current clinicians and their patients.

NSF Awards $10 Million to SDSC to Deploy ‘Expanse’ Supercomputer

July 16, 2019

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego has been awarded a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) worth $10 million to deploy Expanse, a new supercomputer designed to advance research that is increasingly dependent upon heterogeneous and distributed resources.

SDSC’s Comet Supercomputer Used to Model Graphene-Water Interaction

July 9, 2019

NJIT Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Professor Dibakar Datta and his team used the Comet supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center to create simulations of graphene-water interactions to see if graphene is a good candidate for delivering medicine to specific parts of the body.
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