UCSD Receives $11 Million for Green Energy
UC San Diego has landed $11 million in grants to develop cutting-edge renewable energy systems. The state grants from the Public Utilities Commission are the biggest given for such projects to date, the university announced July 29. The university said the projects will help San Diego move toward energy independence and develop as a renewable energy hub, according to a story on San Diego News Network.
Developing a New Class of Therapies Based on MicroRNAs Could Take Decades, But Regulus Shows Steady Progress
Regulus keeps pushing against biotech’s “bleeding edge,” according to a profile of the company that ran in Xconomy recently.
Innovative UCSD Program Helps Minority and Low-Income Students Become Scientists
The Union-Tribune recently profiled a new, federally funded program at UCSD that teaches minority students and students from poorer neighborhoods about the possibility of careers in scientific research.
Researchers Discover Genetic Clues about Formation of Cancer Tumors
New research out of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, STSI, provides previously unknown genetic clues into how cancerous tumors form in the human breast, brain, and colorectal system.
The findings of Ali Torkamani and Professor Nicholas Schork, appeared in the online issue of the journal Genome Research.
In the study, the team analyzed genetic data from 44 breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and glioblastoma tumors and identified specific mutations (changes in a cell's DNA) within groups of genes that are strongly involved in tumor formation.
Scientists Uncover a New Protein Necessary for the Proper Formation of the Immune System
In a paper published in Nature Immunology, a team led by Scripps Research Institute Professor Nicholas R.J. Gascoigne shows that a newly discovered protein, dubbed Themis (for thymocyte expressed molecule involved in selection), provides a signal necessary for one set of immune cells, called T cells, to form. Some immune diseases may ultimately be explained by defects in this mysterious protein.
"It's amazing that this molecule has been missed for so long," said Gascoigne. "People have been studying T-cell development signaling cascades for some 25 years."
Scripps Research Studies Lead to a Promising First-in-Class Drug Candidate
Discoveries by Scripps Research Institute scientists have led to a promising new drug candidate—the first in its class—for patients with a genetic protein-misfolding disease, called Transthyretin amyloid polyneuropathy (ATTR-PN). In results announced by the biopharmaceutical firm FoldRx Pharmaceuticals, the new drug tafamidis significantly halts disease progression.
How the Pathology of Parkinson’s Disease Spreads
Accumulation of a synaptic protein α-synuclein, resulting in the formation of aggregates called Lewy bodies in the brain, is a hallmark of Parkinson’s and other related neurodegenerative diseases. This pathology appears to spread throughout the brain as the disease progresses. Now, researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea, have described how this mechanism works. Their findings – the first to show neuron-to-neuron transmission of α-synuclein – appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Shedding Light on the Core Mechanics of Immunization
A team of researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology uncover a road map of the human immunological system, shining a bright light on an area that has remained a mystery since an English doctor created a vaccine for smallpox in 1796. The team’s work was featured in an article in the Union Tribune, as well as the journal Science.
Scripps Oceanography Project Will Investigate Whether Technology Can Clean Plastic Debris in Northern Pacific Gyre
Scripp’s 174-foot ship New Horizon will launch out of San Diego this Sunday for a 21-day expedition to net, test and map plastic debris floating in the Northern Pacific Gyre, an area of the ocean Northeast of Hawaii, where garbage from North America and Asia accumulates.
Scripps is one of two institutes working with Project Kaisei, an environmental organization that aims to study the types and quantities of the prevalent pollutants that do not fully decompose and thereby threaten marine life in that area of the ocean.The project hopes to determine whether technologies are available to economically clean up the marine debris, or convert it into fuel or other products.
The New Horizon will meet-up at sea with the 150 Kaisei, the environmental group’s flagship vessel launching out of San Francisco on Aug. 4, with a team of marine scientists and experts in marine debris capture.
“The sooner we see the extent of the problem, the better we can work out feasible ways to clean up the mess,” said Doug Woodring, co-founder of Project Kaisei. “The real solution lays in assuming responsibility for the outcomes of our actions, to start using environmentally-sustainable products and to start disposing of our waste responsibly,” Woodring said.
The project was formed under the umbrella of the “Ocean Recovery Alliance”, a format that Project Kaisei will seek to follow with other third-party institutions and organizations in the future. Project Kaisei, which is funded by individual donors and international sponsors, is also recognized as a “Climate Hero” by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) in the lead up to the Copenhagen talks.
For more information, to contribute, collaborate, and to pre-register to follow the expedition in real-time with the ‘Project Kaisei Interactive Voyage Tracker’ please visit: http://www.projectkaisei.org/