Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a method of modeling, simultaneously, an organism’s metabolism and its underlying gene expression. In the emerging field of systems biology, scientists model cellular behavior in order to understand how processes such as metabolism and gene expression relate to one another and bring about certain characteristics in the larger organism.
A study published in the online journal Hepatology reports a potential new NADPH oxidase (NOX) inhibitor therapy for liver fibrosis, a scarring process associated with chronic liver disease that can lead to loss of liver function.
Using just an upgraded desktop computer equipped with a relatively inexpensive graphics processing card, a team of computer scientists and biochemists at the University of California, San Diego, has developed advanced GPU accelerated software and demonstrated for the first time that this approach can sample biological events that occur on the millisecond timescale.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say neutrophils, an abundant type of white blood cell typically tasked with attacking bacteria and other foreign invaders, also plays an unexpected role in mediating insulin resistance – the central characteristic of type 2 diabetes, which afflicts an estimated 26 million Americans.
Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego was ranked 15th in The Scientist magazine’s “Best Places to Work in Academia” survey. The list, published in the August 2012 issue of the magazine, rated Scripps 15th of 25 international science institutions and sixth among West Coast institutions.
The greatest risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is advancing age. By age 85, the likelihood of developing the dreaded neurological disorder is roughly 50 percent. But researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say AD hits hardest among the “younger elderly” – people in their 60s and 70s – who show faster rates of brain tissue loss and cognitive decline than AD patients 80 years and older.
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