Health & Behavior

Research

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New Biomarker Identifies Colon Cancer Patients Who May Benefit from Chemotherapy

Using a new computer science approach, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, Columbia University and Stanford University discovered a distinctive molecular feature — a biomarker — that identified colon cancer patients who were most likely to remain disease-free up to five years after surgery. The biomarker, a protein called CDX2, also helped the researchers identify Stage II colon cancer patients who are most likely to benefit from chemotherapy after surgery.

GenomeSpace “Recipes” Help Biologists Interpret Genomic Data

Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and collaborators developed GenomeSpace, a cloud-based, biologist-friendly platform that connects more than 20 bioinformatics software packages and resources for genomic data analysis. The team is now developing and crowdsourcing “recipes” — step-by-step workflows — to better enable non-programming researchers to interpret their genomic data. The work is described in a paper published January 18, 2016 in Nature Methods.

UC San Diego and Samsara Sciences Team Up to Advance Liver Tissue Models

Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Samsara Sciences, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Organovo Holdings, Inc., have entered into an agreement focused on the development of techniques and methods for the isolation and characterization of liver cells that will help drive new research on liver biology, drug safety and efficacy, and the treatment of liver diseases.

Noted Canadian Neurologist to Head UC San Diego Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study

Howard Feldman, MD, FRCP(C), a renowned Canadian neurologist noted for his original research in geriatric cognitive disorders and expertise in large-scale clinical trials, has been named the new director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS) at University of California, San Diego, pending approval from the National Institute on Aging (NIA).

Pharmacists Helping to Redefine Diabetes Care

Health care providers are facing increasing pressure to achieve better patient outcomes, faster. With that in mind, Candis Morello, PharmD, and her team of Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences students set up what they call a Diabetes Intensive Medical Management “tune up” clinic for complex type 2 diabetes patients at the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System.

Somali, Swahili and Other Ethnic Recipes Go Low-Cal Thanks to Community Health Partnership

Promoting good nutrition and combatting obesity are worthy goals, but in some San Diego neighborhoods you’d better speak Swahili or you won’t get far.