Biology & Genetics

May

2022

Digging into diversity to understand diabetes

Stanford Medicine SCOPE, May 16 2022.

Studying the human genome — the code that determines how the body is put together and operates — has helped scientists decipher the root of many diseases. Even so, there are still holes (some might say gaping ones) in our knowledge of genetic disease.

That’s particularly true when it comes to the causes and risk factors that lead to genetically complex diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes. Researchers call these complex polygenic diseases because they arise from hundreds of small changes to the genome combined with a person’s environment and lifestyle. Read More >

Oct

2021

Bandages With Brains

UCSC Inquiry magazine, October 14 2021

Assistant Professor Marcella Gomez is teaching artificial intelligence learning models to heal. With electrical and computer engineering professors Marco Rolandi and Mircea Teodorescu, Gomez co-leads a collaborative project that includes clinical researchers at UC Davis and Tufts University. Funded by a $16 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the project aims to develop a “smart bandage” that can speed the healing of difficult wounds, like those suffered by soldiers with battlefield injuries from explosions. “Our task is to identify where in the healing process we can intervene to accelerate wound closure,” Gomez said. Read More >

Oct

2021

Watching the Clock

UCSC Inquiry magazine, October 14 2021

A ubiquitous blue-green bacteria found in ponds and lakes worldwide may provide the key to unlocking how life on Earth keeps track of day and night. These cyanobacteria—single-celled, microscopic organisms that create energy from sunlight—provide a simple system that Professor Carrie Partch and her collaborators have harnessed to better probe the intricate workings of biological clocks, the molecular machines that keep time in all living organisms. Read More>

Oct

2021

A Short Story

UCSC Inquiry magazine, October 14 2021

The Nobel Prize weighs about six ounces, but it feels much heavier if you’re female. Only 23 women—about 3 percent of the total—have won a Nobel Prize in the sciences. One of these select few is distinguished professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology Carol Greider, UC Santa Cruz’s first Nobel laureate.

Feeling the weight, Greider has wielded her influence as a laureate to advocate for increased diversity in the research community, working to help ensure women and other scientists from historically disadvantaged groups are free from discrimination and harassment. To this end, throughout her long career, she has spoken out, signed letters, authored op-eds, and joined working groups, in addition to serving as a committed mentor to many students. Read More >

Sep

2021

Reading Genomes: The Key to Life and to Thwarting Death

Simons Foundation, September 30, 2021.

In a hospital in Wuhan, China, a 41-year-old man struggles to breathe. He came in on December 26, 2019, with a fever and flu-like symptoms, but doctors can’t figure out what’s ailing him. Several other people at his workplace, an indoor seafood market, are also sick.

His doctors run tests for influenza and other infections, but the results come back negative. Next, they collect a sample from his lungs by flooding his airway with a sterile saline solution, then suctioning out the fluid. Read More >

Nov

2020

Guilt-Free Procrastination: This Online Game Could Cure Genetic Diseases

Discover, November 30 2010.

Have a brain for puzzles? What about ones that help advance science? A new online game called Phylo is harnessing the power of idle brains on the Internet–asking any and all to help align genomic sequences. Human brain power is used instead of computer power because, as the researchers explain in the press release, humans are still better at some things than computers are:

“There are some calculations that the human brain does more efficiently than any computer can, such as recognizing a face,” explained lead researcher Dr. Jérôme Waldispuhl of the School of Computer Science. “Recognizing and sorting the patterns in the human genetic code falls in that category. Our new online game enables players to have fun while contributing to genetic research–players can even choose which genetic disease they want to help decode.” Read More >

Nov

2020

Age-Reversing Drugs on the Horizon? Not So Fast.

Discover, November 29 2010.

Researchers have identified targets that could help produce old-age-defying drugs and a fountain of youth for the baby boomer population… but haven’t we heard this all before? The study, published in Nature this week, used the enzyme telomerase to stop and actually reverse the aging process in prematurely-aged mice.

Telomerase keeps chromosomes structurally sound by beefing up telomeres, the repetitive segments of junk DNA at the ends of chromosomes. Telomeres act as protective buffers for the chromosome’s working genes during cell division, when the chromosome is shortened and genetic material at the tips is lost. For the new study, researchers created special mice whose telomerase activity could be switched on and off. When telomerase was turned off, the mice aged prematurely. Read More >

Jan

2011

13% of H.S. Biology Teachers Advocate Creationism in Class

LiveScience, January 27 2011.

The majority of high-school biology teachers don’t take a solid stance on evolution with their students, mostly to avoid conflicts, and fewer than 30 percent of teachers take an adamant pro-evolutionary stance on the topic, a new study finds. Also, 13 percent of these teachers advocate creationism in their classrooms.

“The survey left space for [the teachers] to share their experiences. That’s where we picked up a lot of a sense about how they play to the test and tell students they can figure it out for themselves,” Michael Berkman, co-author of the study with Penn State University colleague Eric Plutzer, told Livescience. “Our general sense is they lack the knowledge and confidence to go in there and teach evolution, which makes them risk-averse.” Read More >

Nov

2010

Stem Cell Injections Give Mice Mighty Muscles

Discover, November 11 2010.

Injecting stem cells into injured mouse muscle not only helped the muscle heal, but gave the mice enhanced muscle mass for years to come. The study, published in Science Translational Medicine, used skeletal muscle stem cells from young donor mice and injected them into injured muscles of mature mice. Researchers figured that the stem cells would be able to create new muscle cells in the recipient mouse, but the question was: could these new cells be incorporated into the existing muscle on an adult mouse?

After injuring the recipient mouse’s muscle and injecting the cells, the researchers noticed that the injury healed quickly and the mice had larger muscles (about twice the volume, and a 50 percent increase in mass) than before the injury, which they expected. But were surprised to see that the muscle enhancement was sustained throughout the recipient mouse’s lifetime, up to two years. Read More >

Nov

2010

Going Direct: Researchers Change Skin Into Blood With No Stops in Between

Discover, November 8 2010.

It may not be as miraculous as turning water into wine, or as wealth-generating as turning dirt into gold, but we still think this is a very cool trick: Researchers have transformed mature skin cells directly into mature blood cells. Crucially, this was done without reverting the cells to a flexible, “pluripotent” stage in which the cells can grow into any form. The technique, described in Nature, could lead to lab-grown blood cells for transfusions and transplants for people with bone marrow diseases. Researchers think this new process may be safer than previous methods.

By skipping the pluripotent step, the researchers believe they have skirted the risk that the replacement cells might form dangerous tumors. Read More >