By Elaine Schmidt, UC Los Angeles | March 3, 2021 Researchers applied a new approach pioneered at UCLA to predict which methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, infections will fail to respond to antibiotic treatment. By focusing on epigenetics — changes to gene expression that can't be detected by standard DNA sequencing — the study examined how the immune ... Continue Reading »
Health + Behavior
Understanding the evolution of SARS and COVID-19 type viruses
By Andy Fell, UC Davis | February 24, 2021 As COVID-19 sweeps the world, related viruses quietly circulate among wild animals. A new study shows how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and SARS-CoV-1, which caused the 2003 SARS outbreak, are related to each other. The work, published recently in the journal Virus Evolution, helps scientists better understand the ... Continue Reading »
Prioritizing oldest for COVID-19 vaccines saves more lives, years of life
By Yasmin Anwar, UC Berkeley | February 25, 2021 Challenging the idea that older people with shorter life expectancies should rank lower in coronavirus immunization efforts, new UC Berkeley research shows that giving vaccine priority to those most at risk of dying from COVID-19 will save the maximum number of lives, and their potential or future years of life. The ... Continue Reading »
Childhood diet has lifelong impact
By Jules Bernstein, UC Riverside | February 3, 2021 Eating too much fat and sugar as a child can alter your microbiome for life, even if you later learn to eat healthier, a new study in mice suggests. The study by UC Riverside researchers is one of the first to show a significant decrease in the total number and diversity of gut bacteria in mature mice fed an unhealthy ... Continue Reading »
Fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke more harmful than pollution from other sources
By Robert Monroe, UC San Diego | March 5, 2021 Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego examining 14 years of hospital admissions data conclude that the fine particles in wildfire smoke can be several times more harmful to human respiratory health than particulate matter from other sources such as car exhaust. While this distinction has been ... Continue Reading »
Sewage-handling robots help predict COVID-19 outbreaks
By Heather Buschman, UC San Diego | March 3, 2021 In earlier days of the COVID-19 pandemic, before diagnostic testing was widely available, it was difficult for public health officials to keep track of the infection’s spread, or predict where outbreaks were likely to occur. Attempts to get ahead of the virus are still complicated by the fact that people can be infected and ... Continue Reading »
Novel drug prevents amyloid plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease
By Scott LaFee, UC San Diego | March 2, 2021 Amyloid plaques are pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) — clumps of misfolded proteins that accumulate in the brain, disrupting and killing neurons and resulting in the progressive cognitive impairment that is characteristic of the widespread neurological disorder. In a new study, published March 2, 2021 in ... Continue Reading »
Is this one protein responsible for weight gain?
By Wudan Yan, UC San Francisco | February 25, 2021 As obesity becomes a growing issue worldwide — nearly tripling over the last-half century — scientists are trying to gain a better understanding of the condition at the molecular level. Now, new research led by UC San Francisco scientists suggests that a single protein could play an outsized role in weight gain. As ... Continue Reading »
Poorer mental health smolders after deadly, devastating wildfire
By Scott LaFee, UC San Diego | February 09, 2021 In 2018, a faulty electric transmission line ignited the Camp Fire in Northern California, ultimately consuming 239 square miles and several communities, including the town of Paradise, which was 95 percent destroyed. At least 85 people died. Structures have been rebuilt, but some things are worse. In a paper published ... Continue Reading »
Latinx, Native Americans carry heavier pandemic burden, new poll reports
By Edward Lempinen, UC Berkeley | February 23, 2021 Voters of color in California — especially Latinx and Native American people — face disproportionate risks during the coronavirus pandemic and are far more worried than white voters about job and income loss and access to medical care, according to a new poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies ... Continue Reading »