If the war on drugs were one of his businesses, said Sir Richard Branson, the renowned British magnate, philanthropist and activist, it would have been shut down within a year. “It hasn’t worked at all, ever, but governments continue to ignore the facts, creating untold misery. Drug use isn’t a criminal problem. It’s a health problem.”
Excitement was palpable at UC San Diego’s inaugural Triton Entrepreneur Night as student entrepreneurs, alumni, staff, and community supporters gathered for demos and presentations from the latest crop of student-driven innovations.
Students and researchers at all stages of their academic careers went head-to-head recently, competing for $100k in prizes at the 10th annual UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge.
To better understand the pathogenic bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and develop more effective treatments, University of California San Diego researchers examined the Staph “pan-genome” — the genomes of 64 different strains that differ in where they live, the types of hosts they infect and their antibiotic resistance profiles. This effort, published June 6 by PNAS, places all Staph genes into one of two categories: the core genome or the dispensable genome.
In a meta-analysis of hundreds of clinical trials involving thousands of patients, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine report that therapeutic approaches using precision medicine, which emphasizes the use of individual genetics to refine cancer treatment, showed improved response and longer periods of disease remission, even in phase I trials.
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, the most common of pancreatic cancers, is extraordinarily lethal, with a 5-year survival rate of just 6 percent. In a new study, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center, together with colleagues at Keio University, the University of Nebraska and Ionis Pharmaceuticals describe an innovative new model that not only allowed them to track drug resistance in vivo, but also revealed a new therapeutic target.
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