News Archive

May 16, 2018 — A UC San Diego-led team has identified a gene that helps prevent the harmful buildup of proteins that can lead to neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. As published in Nature, the researchers found that the “Ankrd16” gene acts like a failsafe in proofreading and correcting errors to avoid the abnormal production of improper proteins.

May 14, 2018 — UC San Diego scientists have unraveled a decades-long mystery on how genes are activated. Until activated, human genes are blocked by structures known as nucleosomes, components that serve to package DNA inside cells. Scientists have been trying to determine how these nucleosome roadblocks clear out to allow genes to be turned on. Now, a team of scientists has identified a key factor that partially unravels nucleosomes and clears the way for genes to activate. The identification of “NDF,” or nucleosome destabilizing factor, is described May 14 in the journal Genes & Development. The researchers say the finding provides a new perspective on how genes are turned on and off—knowledge useful in the study of human diseases such as cancer, which can be caused by improper gene activity.

April 30, 2018 — By stretching the amount of time proteins can be simulated in their natural state of wiggling and gyrating, a team of researchers at Colorado State University -- using supercomputers at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center -- has identified a critical protein structure that could serve as a molecular Achilles heel able to inhibit the replication of dengue virus and potentially other flaviviruses such as West Nile and Zika virus.

April 24, 2018 — UC San Diego scientists have identified light-induced electrical activity as the brain mechanism controlling chemical code switching related to stress. While investigating neurotransmitter switching in rats, the researchers found that specific brain neurons were responsible, with possible implications for chemical imbalances in the brain underlying mental illness.

April 23, 2018 — The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the country’s most esteemed honorary societies and independent policy research centers, has elected three professors of the University of California San Diego as new members.

April 17, 2018 — UC San Diego biologists have created the world’s first gene drive system—a mechanism for manipulating genetic inheritance—in Drosophila suzukii, an agricultural pest that has invaded much of the United States and caused millions of dollars in damage to high-value berry and other fruit crops.

March 29, 2018 — Biologists have discovered evidence for a new path of evolution, and with it a deeper understanding of how quickly organisms such as viruses can adapt to their environment. Publishing in the journal Science, the researchers say their findings, which address longstanding mysteries of how genes acquire new functions and how mutations arise to ease transmission from one host to another, could be applied to investigations of viral diseases such as Zika, Ebola and bird flu.

March 8, 2018 — Two neuroscientists have produced a new kind of atlas of the human brain that, they hope, can be eventually refined and improved to provide more detailed information about the organization and function of the human brain.

March 8, 2018 — Through a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase II clinical trial, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine report that small doses of NGM282, a non-tumorigenic variant of an endocrine gastrointestinal hormone, can significantly and rapidly decrease liver fat content in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). The findings, they say, represent an important proof-of-concept for the compound as there are currently no Food and Drug Administration-approved treatments for NAFLD and NASH.

March 5, 2018 — UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers developed a visible neural network and used it to build DCell, a virtual model of a functioning brewer’s yeast cell. To do this, they amassed all knowledge of cell biology in one place and created a hierarchy of these cellular components. Then they mapped standard machine learning algorithms to this knowledgebase. DCell can be viewed at d-cell.ucsd.edu. The technical details are published March 5 in Nature Methods.