Health & Behavior

Research

The Latest

NSF Funds ‘Big Data’ Innovation Hub for the Western U.S.

The NSF has announced funding for a ‘Big Data’ Innovation Hub for the Western United States intended to facilitate collaboration among the region’s technology sector and other organizations to address research challenges across areas such as precision medicine, natural resource utilization, hazard management, and metro regional development. The Western Hub is part of an NSF program announced today that includes four awards totaling more than $5 million to establish regional hubs for data science innovation.

Researchers are on Their Way to Predicting What Side Effects You’ll Experience From a Drug

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a model that could be used to predict a drug’s side effects on different patients. The proof of concept study is aimed at determining how different individuals will respond to a drug treatment and could help assess whether a drug is suitable for a particular patient based on measurements taken from the patient’s blood.

New Computational Strategy Finds Brain Tumor-Shrinking Molecules

Patients with glioblastoma, a type of malignant brain tumor, usually survive fewer than 15 months following diagnosis. Since there are no effective treatments for the deadly disease, University of California, San Diego researchers developed a new computational strategy to search for molecules that could be developed into glioblastoma drugs. In mouse models of human glioblastoma, one molecule they found shrank the average tumor size by half. The study is published October 30 by Oncotarget.

Bipolar Patients’ Brain Cells Predict Response to Lithium

The brain cells of patients with bipolar disorder, a manic-depressive illness characterized by severe swings in mood, energy and ability to carry out daily tasks, are more sensitive to stimuli than other people’s brain cells, reports an international team of scientists headed by researchers at Salk Institute for Biological Studies and University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.

Mining Microbiomes

You are only 10 percent human. Ninety percent of the cells that make up our bodies are actually bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microbes. And researchers are now finding that these unique microbial communities — called microbiomes — can greatly influence human and environmental health. The human gut microbiome alone has now been linked to allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, obesity and many other conditions.

$5 Million ResMed Gift Supports Sleep Medicine at UC San Diego

The University of California, San Diego today announced a $5 million gift from locally based medical device company ResMed, Corp. (RMD) to support sleep medicine research and care at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. The donation was made to the university in honor of ResMed’s founder and chairman of the board, Peter Farrell, M.D. ResMed is an international leader in the development of equipment to treat and manage sleep-disordered breathing and other respiratory conditions.