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News Briefs From UC IrvineNov. 20, 2009 – 11:43 a.m. Stem cells alleviate tumor treatment side effects  Human embryonic stem cells could help people with learning and memory deficits after radiation treatment for brain tumors, a new UC Irvine study suggests. Research with rats found that transplanted stem cells restored learning and memory to normal levels four months after radiotherapy. In contrast, irradiated rats that didn't receive stem cells experienced a more than 50 percent drop in cognitive function. "Our findings provide the first evidence that such cells can be used to ameliorate radiation-induced damage of healthy tissue in the brain," says Charles Limoli (pictured), UCI radiation oncology associate professor and senior author of the study, which appears in the Nov. 10 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More » Nov. 19, 2009 – 6:47 p.m. Stem cells restore mobility in neck-injured rats  The first human embryonic stem cell treatment approved by the FDA for human testing has been shown to restore limb function in rats with neck spinal cord injuries - a finding that could expand the clinical trial to include people with cervical damage. In January, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration gave Geron Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif., permission to test the UC Irvine treatment in individuals with thoracic spinal cord injuries, which occur below the neck. However, trying it in those with cervical damage wasn't approved because preclinical testing with rats hadn't been completed. Results of the cervical study currently appear online in the journal Stem Cells. UCI scientist Hans Keirstead (pictured) hopes the data will prompt the FDA to authorize clinical testing of the treatment in people with both types of spinal cord damage. About 52 percent of spinal cord injuries are cervical and 48 percent thoracic.
More » Oct. 30, 2009 – 3:30 p.m. Emergency medicine professors win international honor  UC Irvine emergency medicine professors Dr. Kristi Koenig and Dr. Tareg Bey have been awarded the Order of the International Federation for Emergency Medicine, which recognizes significant contributions in and commitment to the specialty. It is considered one of the leading honors in the field of international medicine; fewer than 100 emergency medicine physicians worldwide have received it. Koenig and Bey (pictured) are known around the globe for their expertise in disaster preparedness and have worked with foreign governments on their emergency response efforts. Both have also been appointed "international ambassadors" for the American College of Emergency Physicians, helping to promote emergency medicine in Europe and Asia. They will accept the award at an IFEM conference next June.
More » Oct. 30, 2009 – 3:28 p.m. Trigger of deadly food toxin discovered  A toxin produced by mold on nuts and grains can cause liver cancer if consumed in large quantities. UC Irvine researchers have discovered what triggers the toxin to form, which could lead to methods of limiting its production. Because of lax or nonexistent regulation, 4.5 billion people in developing countries are chronically exposed to vast amounts of this toxin, called aflatoxin - often hundreds of times higher than safe levels. In places such as China, Vietnam and South Africa, the combination of aflatoxin and hepatitis B virus exposure increases the likelihood of liver cancer occurrence by 60 times, and toxin-related cancer causes up to 10 percent of all deaths in those nations. "It's shocking how profoundly these molds can affect public health," says Sheryl Tsai (pictured), UCI molecular biology & biochemistry, chemistry, and pharmaceutical sciences associate professor. Tsai is lead author of a study in the Oct. 22 issue of the journal Nature that reports the finding.
More » Oct. 30, 2009 – 3:15 p.m. Alzheimer's lesions found in mice retinas  The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but new research indicates they also may mirror a brain ravaged by Alzheimer's disease. UC Irvine neuroscientists have found that retinas in mice genetically altered to have Alzheimer's undergo changes similar to those that occur in the brain - most notably the accumulation of amyloid plaque lesions. In addition, the scientists discovered that when Alzheimer's therapies are tested in such mice, retinal changes that result might better predict how the treatments will work in humans than changes in mouse brain tissue. These findings are key to developing retinal imaging technology that could help diagnose and treat people with Alzheimer's, which afflicts 5.3 million people in the U.S. and is the leading cause of elderly dementia. The study, led by neuroscientist Zhiqun Tan (pictured), appears in the November issue of The American Journal of Pathology.
More » Oct. 30, 2009 – 9:24 a.m. Biologist explores chemicals' contribution to obesity epidemic  With obesity emerging as a leading health threat to Americans, it's easy to blame a couch-potato culture addicted to calorie-rich foods. But UC Irvine biologist Bruce Blumberg doesn't believe lifestyle alone explains this phenomenon; he thinks industrial pollutants play a part too. Blumberg (pictured) is among a growing number of researchers exploring how chemicals used in plastics, food packaging, pesticides and cosmetics can trigger dramatic increases in body fat. He has even coined a word for these compounds that corrupt the normal function of metabolic hormones: obesogens. While it's unclear to what degree these chemicals contribute to the obesity epidemic, what Blumberg and other researchers around the world are finding is troubling. In ongoing studies, Blumberg has identified how obesogens target signaling proteins to prompt a developing fetus to make more fat cells. This can have lifelong consequences, raising the likelihood of body fat accumulation as a person ages and making it more difficult to lose excess weight.
More » Oct. 29, 2009 – 5:32 p.m. ICTS to honor community-based research efforts  Jill Berg, nursing science associate professor, will be among those feted at a Nov. 3 banquet for the Chancellor's Awards in Clinical & Translational Science. Organized by UCI's Institute for Clinical & Translational Science, the event - which encompasses a community health workshop earlier in the day - was created to recognize exceptional community-based clinical research and treatment efforts and to raise awareness of the need to quickly translate lab discoveries into clinical practice. Berg (pictured) will be honored as Outstanding Community Research Nurse. Other awardees include Cynthia Barnes-Boyd with the Chicago-based UIC Neighborhood Initiatives, who will receive the Chancellor's Commendation for Community-Based Participatory Research, and Costa Mesa's Share Our Selves, named Outstanding Community-Based Organization. Registration for the workshop and banquet is required.
More » Oct. 29, 2009 – 5:30 p.m. UCI researchers address e-waste in Science article  As America's reliance on cell phones, MP3 players and digital cameras grows, so too do concerns that toxic waste elements in these devices can cause significant environmental and health damage when they are disposed of. In the Oct. 30 issue of Science, UCI researchers Dele Ogunseitan (pictured), Jean-Daniel Saphores and Andrew Shapiro discuss this steadily increasing volume of e-waste and current federal policies for recycling and eliminating hazardous materials like mercury, lead, zinc and cadmium from these devices. They advocate better education programs, increased research efforts and a "cradle to grave" approach to the design, use and disposal of such products.
More » Oct. 29, 2009 – 5:10 p.m. Bad driving may have genetic basis, UCI study finds  Bad drivers may in part have their genes to blame, suggests a new study by UC Irvine neuroscientists. People with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it - and a follow-up test a few days later yielded similar results. About 30 percent of Americans have the variant. "These people make more errors from the get-go, and they forget more of what they learned after time away," says Dr. Steven Cramer (pictured), neurology associate professor and senior author of the study, published recently in the journal Cerebral Cortex.
More » Oct. 20, 2009 – 8:44 a.m. UCI team develops precise approach chemotherapy drug delivery  Chemotherapy is one of the most effective ways to fight cancer, but the toxic medicine can cause collateral damage to healthy tissue. UC Irvine’s Kenneth Longmuir, physiology & biophysics associate professor (pictured left), and Richard Robertson, anatomy & neurobiology professor, believe they have developed a way for these drugs to reach specific tumors with increased precision, thereby limiting side effects. In a study appearing online in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics, the researchers show that doxorubicin — commonly used to treat a number of cancers — can be directed almost entirely to a particular spot in the body with virtually no spread to other organs. “This promising approach opens up a new avenue to helping people survive cancer,” Longmuir says.
More » Oct. 16, 2009 – 11:09 a.m. UCI to celebrate 'topping out' of new stem cell building  The UC Irvine Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center will host a "topping out" barbecue Friday, Oct. 16, to celebrate reaching the halfway point in the construction of its new building. Center co-directors Peter Donovan and Hans Keirstead and Vice Chancellor for Research Susan Bryant will speak at the event. Faculty members and postdoctoral researchers funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine also will attend. The barbecue begins at noon at the construction site next to Hewitt Hall. The building - Sue & Bill Gross Hall: A CIRM Institute - is scheduled to open in 2010.
More » Oct. 15, 2009 – 10:30 a.m. Center for Complex Biological Systems awarded $2 million from NIH The National Institutes of Health has awarded UC Irvine's Center for Complex Biological Systems $2 million over two years under its Grand Opportunity grant program for a multidisciplinary study of feedback control in cancer cell lineages in solid tumors. Principal investigators are Arthur Lander and John Lowengrub (pictured). Co-investigators Eva Lee, Natalia Komarova, Max Welling and Dominik Wodarz also will work on the study. The researchers come from various academic backgrounds, including developmental & cell biology, math, biological chemistry, computer science, and ecology & evolutionary biology.
More » Oct. 12, 2009 – 4:36 p.m. UC Irvine Medical Center again certified as only Level I trauma center in OC  The American College of Surgeons recently re-verified UC Irvine Medical Center as a Level I trauma center – the only one in Orange County. The designation, which UCI has held since the 1980s, means the medical center addresses every aspect of injury – from prevention to treatment to rehabilitation – and meets the nation’s highest trauma care standards for treating children and adults. There are just 10 such Level I trauma centers in the state. “UCI’s trauma center is the backbone of Orange County’s emergency medical system,” says Michael Lekawa. trauma surgeon and director of trauma services. “We care for nearly half of the county’s trauma cases each year and are a resource for area hospitals in dealing with the most critical and complicated cases.”
More » Oct. 7, 2009 – 1:10 p.m. UC campuses join forces against breast cancer  Researchers and physicians with UC Irvine's Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center have teamed with University of California colleagues to launch the Athena Breast Health Network. The groundbreaking project will screen an initial 150,000 California women for breast cancer and follow them for decades through the five UC medical centers. Ultimately, as many as 400,000 women may participate in the network. Athena's organizers say the multiyear study will lead to more effective methods for screening, diagnosis and treatment, as well as improving survivors' quality of life. "In terms of depth and breadth, from detection to survivorship, this will be the largest study of its kind," says Hoda Anton-Culver, epidemiology professor and chair who is heading UCI's effort.
More » Oct. 1, 2009 – 12:41 p.m. Disaster preparedness expert to appear on UCTV video series  Dr. Kristi Koenig, director of public health preparedness for UC Irvine Healthcare, will join other experts on "Disaster Preparedness for Health Professionals," a four-part video series highlighting best practices. Presented by University of California Television and the California Preparedness Education Network, the series will show how anyone – from a single individual to a complex organization – can be better prepared for emergencies. Installment topics include natural disasters, chemical and biological agents, pandemic influenza and other emerging infections, and disaster volunteerism. The series premieres at 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 5, on UCTV, which is available on Dish Network, through select cable systems and online at www.uctv.tv.
More » Oct. 1, 2009 – 12:32 p.m. Distinguished Professor to receive entomology award  Anthony James, Distinguished Professor of microbiology & molecular genetics and molecular biology & biochemistry, will receive the Nan-Yao Su Award for Innovation & Creativity in Entomology from the Entomological Society of America. The first-time award is funded by a $250,000 endowment to honor entomologists who can identify problems and develop creative, alternative solutions that significantly affect entomology. James (pictured) studies vector-parasite interactions, mosquito molecular biology, and other aspects of insect developmental biology. His lab is working on genetics-based methods for blocking transmission of human pathogens by mosquitoes.
More » Sept. 23, 2009 – 5:11 p.m. Master's program in public health launched  A new master's program in public health will train future practitioners to help reduce the burden of disease and disability in culturally diverse communities in Southern California and around the world. An initial class of 16 students – who met with Chancellor Michael Drake during their orientation (pictured) – will study with a faculty of renowned researchers while pursuing a two-year degree with an emphasis in environmental health, epidemiology, or sociocultural diversity and health. The master's option is the latest addition to the public health program, which began in 2003 and offers bachelor's degrees through its Department of Population Health and Disease Prevention.
More » Sept. 22, 2009 – 2:52 p.m. MS pioneer and former medicine dean Dr. Stanley van den Noort dies at 79  Dr. Stanley van den Noort (pictured), a former dean of medicine at UC Irvine and a pioneer in multiple-sclerosis education, research and patient care, has died at the age of 79. Noort joined UCI in 1970 and as dean from 1973-85 was a key figure in the medical school's growth into a nationally ranked institution. He was an internationally acclaimed leader in the neurosciences and built at UCI one of the country's first and most successful multiple-sclerosis clinics. For these accomplishments, he received the UCI Medal, the campus's highest honor, in 2008. "Quite simply, Dr. van den Noort was a giant – both at UCI and in the field of multiple sclerosis – and his care and compassion brought tremendous relief to so many," says Dr. Ralph V. Clayman, UCI interim dean of medicine.
More » Sept. 22, 2009 – 2:50 p.m. UCI flu expert stresses sensible preparation  Novel H1N1 influenza, commonly known as swine flu, reached pandemic status in June, but many public health experts believe its threat may peak with the flu season this fall. As a vaccine is being developed, communities are emphasizing common-sense prevention and finalizing large-scale response plans should H1N1 sicken millions. Dr. Kristi Koenig (pictured), director of public health preparedness for UC Irvine Healthcare and UCI emergency medicine professor, works on the front lines of this flu battle and is a much-sought-after expert on H1N1 preparations. Her advice? "Avoid sick people, cover your cough, wash your hands frequently and stay home if you are ill," she says. "Because this is a new virus, information can change rapidly. Monitor the news carefully, and follow public health advice." Oh, and turn down any invitations to swine flu parties.
More » Sept. 22, 2009 – 2:45 p.m. Cancer drug may inhibit cocaine relapse behavior  A drug in development to treat cancer could help prevent relapse behavior in people trying to overcome an addiction to cocaine, according to a new study by UC Irvine neuroscientists. In mice conditioned to cocaine, drug-seeking activity was inhibited faster and to a greater extent with sodium butyrate than without it. "Our results are exciting because sodium butyrate taps into fundamental molecular mechanisms, providing a novel approach to understanding and treating drug addiction," says Marcelo Wood (pictured), UCI neurobiology & behavior assistant professor and co-author of the study, published online Sept. 22 in the journal Biological Psychiatry.
More » Sept. 21, 2009 – 4:52 p.m. Taking stock of UCI research on World Alzheimer's Day  Five clinical trials, $12.7 million in grants and nearly a dozen major articles in scientific journals distinguish UC Irvine's research into Alzheimer's disease, much of it affiliated with the Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND), directed by Frank LaFerla (pictured). Monday, Sept. 21, is World Alzheimer's Day, which focuses attention on a disease that's diagnosed every 70 seconds in the U.S., contributing to $148 billion annually in healthcare costs. More than 5 million Americans are living with it, according to the Alzheimer's Association, and as baby boomers age, patient ranks will swell. By 2050, the number of people 65 and older with Alzheimer's could reach 16 million – unless a way to prevent the brain disorder can be found.
More » Sept. 16, 2009 – 12:19 p.m. Bone cement discovery lands professor on 'Most Influential' list  Image, a weekly magazine for radiology professionals, has named UCI's Joyce Keyak to its 2009 "25 Most Influential in Radiology" roster. Keyak, an orthopedic surgery associate professor who will be joining the radiological sciences department, was selected for helping create radioactive bone cement that targets cancerous tumors in the bone without damaging surrounding healthy tissue. The product, called Bone-Rad, could reduce cancer patients' exposure to radiation and the cost of treatment. "Radioactive bone cement is likely to have a profound impact on the treatment of cancer that spreads to bones," says the magazine. "Combining her varied experiences in other disciplines, such as engineering and orthopedics, with radiology gives her a fresh perspective and an innovative style."
More » Sept. 15, 2009 – 11:05 a.m. Alzheimer's art creates lasting memories  Nine paintings produced through the Alzheimer's Association's Memories in the Making program are on display at UCI MIND, in Biological Sciences III. UCI MIND advisory board member Jacque DuPont and local businessman Robert B. Rosenberg loaned the artwork to the institute. The public may view the paintings during regular business hours or at an open house Tuesday, Sept. 15; UCI MIND will provide docent tours beginning at 4:30 p.m. The event will also feature a lecture by Dr. Claudia Kawas on "How to Get Old: Lessons from 90-Year-Olds" at 3:30 p.m. in the Biological Sciences III Lecture Hall, Room 1200.
More » Sept. 11, 2009 – 10:52 a.m. Memories exist even when forgotten, study suggests  A woman looks familiar, but you can't remember her name or where you met her. New research by UC Irvine neuroscientists suggests the memory exists - you simply can't retrieve it. Using advanced brain imaging techniques, the scientists discovered that a person's brain activity while remembering an event is very similar to when it was first experienced, even if specifics can't be recalled. "If the details are still there, hopefully we can find a way to access them," says Jeff Johnson (pictured), postdoctoral researcher at UCI's Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory and lead author of the study, appearing Sept. 10 in the journal Neuron.
More » Aug. 17, 2009 – 1:04 p.m. Samueli Center offers new lifelong health program  Through its Newport Beach clinic, the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine has begun offering a 12-week wellness program called "Live Longer, Live Better" that incorporates proven complementary and alternative approaches to treating body, mind and spirit. It consolidates what the clinic provides — acupuncture, tai chi classes and naturopathic therapy — into a single, individualized program. Designed for those who struggle with obesity, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol counts and metabolic diseases like diabetes, it can also benefit people who are chronically stressed, are often fatigued or just don't feel well. "The goal is to instill healthy habits and practices that people can follow daily to improve their overall health and reduce the risk of future disease," says Dr. Bianca Garilli, a naturopathic doctor who helped create the program. "We want to begin a process of change in order for the body to heal itself."
More » Aug. 17, 2009 – 1:03 p.m. Radiology chair published in New England Journal of Medicine  Dr. Scott Goodwin, chair of UC Irvine's Department of Radiological Sciences, has published an article on uterine fibroid embolization in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Goodwin is a pioneer in the procedure, which seeks to reduce the size of uterine fibroids through interventional radiology rather than surgery. The top reason for hysterectomies, uterine fibroids can develop in women of any age and may be present in two-thirds of women over 50. They can cause bleeding, pain and infertility.
More » Aug. 11, 2009 – 12:15 p.m. Neurobiologist named Kauffman postdoctoral fellow  UC Irvine neurobiologist Christopher Rex was selected as one of the first 13 Kauffman Postdoctoral Entrepreneurship Fellows. During the yearlong program, the fellows will have their salaries and benefits provided by the Kauffman Foundation and receive internship experience and mentoring in how to take discoveries from lab to market. Rex, a postdoctoral researcher in anatomy & neurobiology, studies molecular and cellular activity in the brain to understand memory coding and psychiatric illnesses. He intends to pursue a career in academic science and as an entrepreneur in diagnostic and pharmaceutical products.
More » Aug. 5, 2009 – 9:11 a.m. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez visits UCI's fuel cell and stem cell centers  Rep. Loretta Sanchez, who represents the 47th Congressional District, comprising much of central Orange County, visited key research centers at UC Irvine Tuesday, Aug. 4, to learn about emerging technologies. Graduate students Shane Stephens-Romero and Allie Auld joined National Fuel Cell Research Center director Scott Samuelsen in telling Sanchez about the future of hydrogen power. The congresswoman then climbed behind the wheel of a fuel-cell-powered Toyota hybrid and drove to the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center. There she heard from Hans Keirstead and Peter Donovan, center co-directors, and Frank LaFerla, director of the Institute for Memory Impairments & Neurological Disorders, about their work. She urged them to educate the community about the value of stem cell therapy.
More » News Contact Related topics: Health & Medicine, Science & Technology, Society & Politics, Hydrogen Fuel Cells, Politics, Science, Stem Cells Aug. 4, 2009 – 4:53 p.m. UCI biologist reports original source of malaria  Researchers have identified what they believe is the original source of malignant malaria: a parasite found in chimpanzees in equatorial Africa. UC Irvine biologist Francisco Ayala and colleagues think the deadly parasite was transmitted to humans from chimpanzees perhaps as recently as 5,000 years ago - and possibly through a single mosquito, genetic analyses indicate. Previously, malaria's origin had been unclear. This discovery could aid the development of a vaccine for malaria, which sickens about 500 million people and kills about 1.5 million each year. It also furthers understanding of how infectious diseases such as HIV, SARS, and avian and swine flu can be transmitted to humans from animals. The study appears the week of Aug. 3 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More » July 29, 2009 – 4:32 p.m. Sacramento stop highlights PRIME-LC Central Valley tour  On July 28, first-year UC Irvine medical students enrolled in the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC) met with state legislative and governor's staff at the Capitol in Sacramento to discuss how health policy is created in California. PRIME-LC is designed to produce physician-leaders who can address the distinctive healthcare needs of California's growing Latino population, and it is hoped that program graduates will someday influence policymaking. The Capitol visit concluded a nine-day tour of the San Joaquin Valley by incoming PRIME-LC students to learn firsthand about Latino health issues.
More » July 29, 2009 – 4:30 p.m. Study probes link between prenatal stress, infant health  Stress is an everyday part of life, but too much of it for pregnant women can be detrimental to their babies' development. Researchers at UC Irvine are working with 600 Southern California women and their children to understand why. They're investigating the correlation between prenatal levels of stress hormones, such as cortisol, and infant/child cognition and behavior. Their Women & Children's Health & Well-Being Project is among the first large-scale studies in the country on prenatal stress and child development. "This is a new area of study, and what we learn now will go a long way toward the creation of treatments to improve prenatal health," says project researcher Elysia Poggi Davis.
More » July 27, 2009 – 10:26 a.m. Cancer center's comprehensive designation reapproved  The National Cancer Institute has reapproved the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at UC Irvine as one of 40 comprehensive cancer centers in the U.S. Comprehensive centers are chosen for their commitment to integrated research, prevention, diagnostic, treatment and rehabilitation programs. The designation is the highest honor given by the NCI in recognition of excellence in cancer research and treatment. The Chao center first received comprehensive status in 1997 and is the only facility of its kind in Orange County. "This is a great testament to our faculty, staff and community supporters who are committed to finding new and improved preventions and treatments for cancer," says center director Dr. Frank L. Meyskens Jr.
More » July 21, 2009 – 11:26 a.m. Dermatology chair to chat online Wednesday  UC Irvine dermatology professor and chair Dr. Christopher Zachary will be featured in the weekly "In Your Face Chat" on the Orange County Register's Web site from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, July 22. Topics will include how Academy Award-winning actress Helen Mirren maintains her looks at age 63 and the popular new eyelash-lengthener Latisse, followed by questions from chat participants.
More » July 20, 2009 – 4:06 p.m. Doctor to create Web-based way to make surgery less scary for kids  Surgery can be traumatic for children – and their parents. To guide families through the experience, Dr. Zeev Kain, anesthesiology & perioperative care chair and professor, has received a $1.7 million National Institutes of Health grant to create and implement a unique Web site to help parents ease children’s anxiety (and their own), properly manage postsurgical pain and, ultimately, facilitate healing. The Tailored Intervention Preparation for Surgery site will address one of the most pressing needs in pediatric surgical care. About 60 percent of the 5 million children who undergo surgery in the U.S. each year develop extreme anxiety beforehand and suffer from unnecessary pain afterward. “The site will create a program specifically tailored to the child’s needs and the parents’ ability to provide care,” Kain says. “We want to provide the guidance for families to manage their children’s surgeries.”
More » July 20, 2009 – 4:02 p.m. Drug restores memory lost to Alzheimer's disease  A drug similar to one used in clinical trials for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis has been found to rescue memory in mice exhibiting Alzheimer's symptoms, finds a UC Irvine study by Andrea Tenner (pictured), molecular biology & biochemistry professor, and colleagues. The discovery offers hope that a new treatment may be on the horizon for people in the early stages of Alzheimer's, the leading cause of elderly dementia afflicting more than 5 million people in the U.S. and for which no cure exists. The drug, called PMX205, prevented inflamed immune cells from gathering in brain regions with Alzheimer's lesions called amyloid plaques. Cell inflammation in these areas accelerates neuron damage, exacerbating the disease. Study results are reported in the July 15 edition of The Journal of Immunology.
More » July 20, 2009 – 4:01 p.m. Neural stem cells offer potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease  UC Irvine scientists led by Frank LaFerla and Mathew Blurton-Jones (pictured) have shown for the first time that neural stem cells can rescue memory in mice with advanced Alzheimer's disease, raising hopes of a potential treatment for the leading cause of elderly dementia that afflicts 5.3 million people in the U.S. Mice genetically engineered to have Alzheimer's performed markedly better on memory tests a month after mouse neural stem cells were injected into their brains. The stem cells secreted a protein that created more neural connections, improving cognitive function. The study reporting these findings appears online the week of July 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More » July 20, 2009 – 3:53 p.m. Chemists discover ozone-boosting reaction  It's a recipe for choking smog: Burn tons of fossil fuels. Pump those chemicals into the air, where they react on surfaces of buildings and roads. The result is the creation of photochemical smog-forming chlorine atoms, UC Irvine scientists led by Barbara Finlayson-Pitts (pictured) report in a new study. Under extreme circumstances, this previously unknown chemistry could account for up to 40 parts per billion of ozone - nearly half of California's legal limit on outdoor air pollution. The reaction is not included in computer models used to predict air pollution levels and the effectiveness of ozone control strategies that can cost billions of dollars. Study results appear the week of July 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More » July 8, 2009 – 3:47 p.m. Zeng wins grant to study form of muscular dystrophy  Weihua Zeng, a postgraduate researcher in biological chemistry at UC Irvine, has received a Helen and David Younger Fellowship Grant of $35,500 to study facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), a form of the hereditary disease marked by progressive weakness and atrophy of facial, shoulder and upper-arm musculature. Zeng will use the grant, awarded by the FSH Society, to study the changes in the genomes of FSHD patients and to understand how these alterations affect the development of the disease. He hopes to identify the molecular mechanism of FSHD and possibly develop treatments to improve the physical functioning of patients. Zeng works in the laboratory of biological chemistry associate professor Kyoko Yokomori.
More » July 6, 2009 – 4:26 p.m. Greenfield-led panel suggests U.S. medical priorities  An influential Institute of Medicine advisory panel co-chaired by Dr. Sheldon Greenfield, the Donald Bren Professor of Medicine at UC Irvine, has issued a report urging the U.S. government to fund studies comparing treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, attention deficit disorder and other conditions to determine which strategies work best. The recommendations were included in a list of 100 priorities developed by the panel, which was charged with advising the government on how to spend money allocated by Congress for “comparative effectiveness” research. “This report lays the foundation for an ongoing enterprise to provide the evidence that healthcare providers need to make better decisions and achieve better results,” Greenfield said.
More » June 26, 2009 – 1:44 p.m. UCI brain aging institute gets new name  The UC Irvine Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia has a new name -- UCI Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, or UCI MIND. The change makes the institute's name more user-friendly and better describes its role in researching brain disorders beyond Alzheimer's disease, such as Parkinson’s disease, Huntington's disease, inclusion body myositis, and Lou Gehrig's disease, director Frank LaFerla said. More than 60,000 Orange County residents suffer from Alzheimer’s, the leading cause of dementia among the elderly. In the U.S., 5.3 million people have the disease. Every 71 seconds, an American develops Alzheimer's, and by 2030, someone will develop it every 30 seconds. Other disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, also are expected to double in the next few decades.
More » June 25, 2009 – 4:16 p.m. Hormone treatment lessens surgery-related stress in kids  Dr. Zeev Kain, anesthesiology & perioperative care professor and chair at UC Irvine, has found that treating children with the hormone melatonin before they undergo surgery significantly reduces emergence delirium, a distressing incidence of acute behavioral changes experienced when waking up from anesthesia. Affecting up to 20 percent of children who undergo surgery, emergence delirium in the post-anesthesia care unit can include crying, thrashing and need for restraint. This also can lead to behavioral changes outside the recovery suite, with the onset of nightmares, bed-wetting and separation anxiety, according to Kain. Melatonin is a hormone that regulates sleep and moods. The study, which involved 148 subjects between the ages of 2 and 8 undergoing outpatient surgery, appears in Anesthesiology.
More » June 25, 2009 – 4:17 p.m. More preemies born in neighborhoods with heavy traffic pollution  Women exposed to air pollution from freeways and congested roads are much more likely to give birth to premature babies and suffer from preeclampsia (pregnancy-induced hypertension), according to a University of California study led by UC Irvine public health assistant professor Jun Wu. The findings, based on pregnant women in the Long Beach/Orange County region, add to the growing evidence that car and truck exhaust can jeopardize the health of babies while they are in the womb. Reviewing the birth records of more than 81,000 infants, researchers found that the risk of having a baby born before 30 weeks of gestation increased 128 percent for women who live near the worst traffic-generated air pollution. The study appears online in Environmental Health Perspectives.
More » June 24, 2009 – 1:45 p.m. McGaugh to receive American Philosophical Society award  UC Irvine neuroscientist James McGaugh has been selected to receive the American Philosophical Society's 2009 Karl Spencer Lashley Award. Established in 1957 by Lashley, a society member and distinguished neuroscientist and neuropsychologist, the award recognizes outstanding research on the integrative neuroscience of behavior. McGaugh is founding chair of the department of neurobiology & behavior, and founding director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at UCI.
More » June 24, 2009 – 1:39 p.m. UCI scientists awarded nearly $1.5 million for instruments  Three UC Irvine scientists have been awarded nearly $1.5 million from the National Institutes of Health to buy research instruments. Suzanne Sandmeyer, biological chemistry professor, will receive about $500,000 to purchase a next-generation DNA sequencer; Tom Poulos, molecular biology & biochemistry professor, will get about $477,000 for an X-ray diffraction instrument; and Greg Weiss (pictured), chemistry associate professor, will receive about $500,000 for a mass spectrometer, which helps determine molecule mass and examines proteins in great detail.
More » June 22, 2009 – 3:01 p.m. Researchers gauge effectiveness of ‘superfoods’  UC Irvine researchers are leading the effort to see how - or if - natural compounds in tomatoes, kava and other “superfoods” work in the human body to prevent or treat cancer.
Since joining the UCI urology department in 2002, Xiaolin Zi has made key discoveries showing that kava compounds called flavokawains stop bladder tumor growth in cell cultures and animal studies, and he believes they hold hope for staving off bladder cancer in humans. And in recent work, he’s finding that lycopene – an antioxidant compound in tomatoes – is proving to be a promising supplement for prostate cancer chemotherapy. “Although there are not yet a lot of studies showing the cancer-fighting effectiveness of natural treatments, many cancer patients are using them,” he says. “There is a lot of exciting potential is this area of research.”
More » June 17, 2009 – 9:59 a.m. Soltesz awarded top international prize for epilepsy research  Ivan Soltesz, UC Irvine professor and chair of anatomy & neurobiology, has been named recipient of the 2009 Michael Prize, one of the most highly regarded international awards for biomedical research on epilepsy. Soltesz’s work focuses on the factors causing epileptic seizures resulting from head trauma in adults and early febrile seizures in infants. The award includes a 20,000 euro prize and will be presented at the International Epilepsy Congress Sunday, June 28, in Budapest. In 2005, Soltesz also received the Senator Jacob Javits Award in the Neurosciences, the U.S.’s top prize for cutting-edge research into brain disorders, and was recently elected chair of the basic science committee of the American Epilepsy Society.
More » June 17, 2009 – 10:09 a.m. UCI stem cell scientists log 300th CIRM-funded research paper  Just three years after the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine awarded its first round of research grants, the funding has resulted in the 300th research paper logged by grantees -- and it's by UC Irvine scientists Hans Keirstead and Tom Lane (pictured). The paper found that transplanted cells derived from human embryonic stem cells were able to repair some damage in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis. In people with MS, the immune system attacks the insulation -- called myelin -- that covers and protects neurons of the brain and spinal cord. Transplantation helped re-form the myelin coating on damaged cells. The study was published late May in the Journal of Neuroimmunology.
More » June 12, 2009 – 3:39 p.m. First nursing graduates take part in pinning ceremony  In a tradition that goes back more than a century, the first graduating class of UC Irvine’s nursing science program will participate in a pinning ceremony Sunday, June 14, in the Student Center’s Pacific Ballroom. Dressed in their white coats, the 36 graduates will be called individually to the stage to be awarded a specially designed UCI pin from program director Ellen Olshansky and associate director Ellen Lewis as a symbolic welcoming into the nursing profession. “The pinning ceremony is a rite of passage that each nurse takes on a long journey toward a rewarding career,” says Olshansky. “Because we’re honoring UCI’s inaugural class of nursing graduates, this event is even more special.”
More » June 9, 2009 – 11:07 a.m. New campus group sending vitamins, wheelchairs to Africa  A new UC Irvine group headed by neuroscientist Hans Keirstead (pictured) is sending vitamins and wheelchairs to disadvantaged people in Africa. The UCI Africa Initiative aims to raise awareness about how small gestures can have a huge affect on Africans' lives. Formed in late April, the group includes participants from Student Affairs and the School of Medicine. "It's amazing how little you have to do to have a large impact in Africa. I think more people would help if they knew how easy it is," said Keirstead, co-director of the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center and faculty member of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center, which seeks treatments for spinal cord injuries.
More » June 15, 2009 – 11:30 a.m. Study finds treatment for precancerous condition effective  UC Irvine Healthcare’s Dr. Kenneth J. Chang (left) and Dr. Raman Muthusamy are among the physicians whose study has verified an effective treatment for Barrett’s esophagus, a precancerous condition in the lining of the esophagus. There are no specific causes Barrett's esophagus, but it is commonly found in people with acid reflux disease or chronic heartburn. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine May 28, found that radiofrequency ablation – heating the cells to destroy them – treats the condition and has a low complication rate compared to a traditional esophagectomy. Earlier this year, Dr. Chang and a patient appeared on the syndicated program "The Doctors" to discuss the successful use of the procedure. See the video here: www.healthcare.uci.edu/
More » June 4, 2009 – 3:20 p.m. Using mathematics to predict cancer growth  John Lowengrub, UC Irvine mathematics professor and chair, knows the devastating effects of cancer. His aunt died 10 years ago of ovarian cancer, and several members of his wife's family have battled and recovered from the disease. Applying his academic skills to the question of how cancer spreads, Lowengrub began building mathematical computer models to predict tumor growth and evaluate therapy options. The goal: maximize treatment effectiveness and minimize patient suffering. In May, Lowengrub published a study in the journal Cancer Research showing that cancer growth is not as erratic as previously thought. A computer simulation (pictured) predicts the growth of a cancerous tumor.
More » June 8, 2009 – 9:56 a.m. Anesthesiology receives accreditation, rankings boost The residency program in the Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Care at UC Irvine has received a full five-year accreditation and will expand from a traditional three-year to four-year program that will provide a complete training for future anesthesiologists. UCI now offers one of only two California anesthesia four-year residencies with full accreditation. In addition, the department moved from 44th to 26th nationally in National Institutes of Health research funding for anesthesiology departments. “With this accreditation and rankings achievement, the efforts we have made to transform our department are starting to bear fruit, and we are continuing to build teaching and patient-care programs that will take their place among the nation’s finest,” says Dr. Zeev Kain, anesthesiology professor and chair.
More » June 3, 2009 – 9:23 a.m. Biologist to share grant for limb-regeneration research  UC Irvine biologist David Gardiner's laboratory is one of four that will share a $6.25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to compare gene regulatory pathways in the axolotl, a salamander that can regenerate its limbs, with pathways in a mouse model for humans. The goal is to identify genes involved in wounds that lead to regeneration in the axolotl, then determine how they are regulated in response to injuries in the mouse. Because the axolotl, mouse and human have similar genetic pathways, scientists hope to identify regeneration signals that could lead to human therapies. Ken Muneoka at Tulane University, a UCI alumnus, is heading the project, which also involves the University of Kentucky. The award is part of $260 million over five years to academic institutions nationwide to perform multidisciplinary basic science research.
More » May 26, 2009 – 11:19 a.m. Committing single events to memory  Single events account for many of our memories - a marriage proposal, a wedding toast, a baby's birth. Until a recent UC Irvine discovery, scientists knew little about what happens inside your brain that allows you to remember such events. In a study with rats, neuroscientist John Guzowski and colleagues found that a single brief experience was as effective at activating neurons and genes associated with memory as more repetitive activities. Knowing how the brain remembers single events can help scientists design better therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer's in which the ability to form such memories is impaired.
More » May 26, 2009 – 10:12 a.m. Traffic pollution found to increase heart attack, stroke risk  Epidemiologist Dr. Ralph Delfino and his UC Irvine colleagues provide some of the first evidence that air-pollution particles, especially unregulated ultrafine particles, may be involved in deactivating antioxidant enzymes in red blood cells. The associated oxidative stress, they say, can trigger inflammation in arteries and veins and can activate platelets that cause blood clots in people with a history of coronary heart disease, thus elevating heart attack and stroke risk. The study, which currently appears in the online version of Environmental Health Perspectives, followed 60 elderly persons with coronary artery disease living in Southern California retirement communities.
More » May 26, 2009 – 10:12 a.m. UCI discovery part of successful arthritis drug trial  A new drug made from antibody compounds created by UC Irvine researchers Tom Lane and Hans Keirstead has successfully completed a phase II clinical trial for treating rheumatoid arthritis. The pharmaceutical company Medarex has licensed the antibodies, which block immune-system response, to create new treatments for autoimmunity diseases. Medarex will now enter the drug, called MDX-1100, into a large-scale phase III trial, which if successful will make the drug eligible for FDA approval and consumer use. Medarex also is testing a drug made from the UCI anti-IP-10 antibodies for treating ulcerative colitis. Lane and Keirstead created the antibodies earlier this decade for studies on autoimmunity response in multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injury.
More » May 19, 2009 – 4 p.m. $21 million gift will name UC Irvine's new hospital  A $21 million posthumous gift from the estate of a man whose values included integrity and passion for life has enabled UC Irvine to reach its fundraising goal for the university hospital at UC Irvine Medical Center. The largest single-cash gift in campus history comes from the estate of M.A. Douglas (shown), formerly a resident of Orange. In recognition of the generous donation, the university’s new seven-story hospital in Orange will be renamed UC Irvine Douglas Hospital. “Our long-held commitment is to deliver the finest healthcare to our Orange County community and beyond; this transformative gift dramatically improves our ability to do so,” said Chancellor Michael Drake.
More » May 26, 2009 – 10:13 a.m. Keirstead to receive award for stem cell research  Hans Keirstead, co-director of the UC Irvine Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, will receive $25,000 from the Sabrina Cohen Foundation for Stem Cell Research Saturday, June 6. The nonprofit foundation formed by Cohen, who has lived with a spinal cord injury since 1992, is dedicated to advancing stem cell therapies. Keirstead's laboratory developed a spinal cord-injury therapy using human embryonic stem cells that recently received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for testing in humans – the first of its kind in the U.S. Keirstead, also of the UCI Reeve-Irvine Research Center, will present his research developments and discuss the state of stem cell research during the award event in Miami.
More » May 16, 2009 – 4:41 p.m. OC high school students to take part in annual CampMed  Students from four Orange County high schools will take part in CampMed, the annual UC Irvine School of Medicine outreach program that introduces teens from underserved communities to educational and career opportunities in healthcare. The three-day camp experience will be held on the UCI campus May 15-17 and will feature roundtable discussions with various professionals in the field and assorted workshops for suturing techniques, ultrasound treatments, phlebotomy and basic first aid. In addition, CampMed kids will get a chance to participate in rounds at the UCI Irvine Medical Center. CampMed started in 1997 and has reached out to more than 1,000 high school students from Los Angeles and Orange counties.
More » May 14, 2009 – 10:39 a.m. UCI awarded $45 million for infectious disease research  The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded UC Irvine $45 million over five years for infectious disease research. The renewal grant, which is the campus’s largest ever, went to the Pacific-Southwest Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research and its director, Dr. Alan Barbour, a UCI infectious disease expert (pictured). The Pacific-Southwest center is one of only 11 federally funded research sites dedicated to countering threats from bioterrorism agents and emerging infections, and its researchers are located at UCI and 19 other universities and institutes in California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii.
More » May 13, 2009 – 11:49 a.m. Vaccine slows progression of skeletal muscle disorder in mice  A potential vaccine for Alzheimer's disease also has been shown in mice to slow the weakening of muscles associated with inclusion body myositis, a disorder that affects the elderly. The new UC Irvine finding brings new hope for IBM patients with weakness, inflammation or atrophy of muscles in their fingers, wrists, forearms or quadriceps. There is no cure for IBM, nor is there an effective treatment. "The immunization wasn't a complete fix, but it significantly slowed the deterioration of motor function in our IBM mice," said Frank LaFerla (pictured), director of UCI's Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia. Study results appeared Wednesday, May 13, in The Journal of Neuroscience.
More » May 13, 2009 – 11:50 a.m. UCI receives recovery act grant for global health training  Public health professor Guiyun Yan received a $135,000 Framework grant from the Fogarty International Center to expand global health studies at UC Irvine. The grant is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which is investing $10 billion into health-related research and infrastructure. Yan said the grant will fund fellowship opportunities for UCI students and faculty, support new course development and help establish a global health concentration in the master of public health program. The Fogarty center, the international component of the National Institutes of Health, addresses global health challenges through support of research and training programs. It has been providing Framework grants since 2005.
More » April 30, 2009 – 9:38 a.m. Dietary fats trigger long-term memory formation  UC Irvine researchers have found that eating fat-rich foods triggers the formation of long-term memories of that activity. Daniele Piomelli (pictured) and James McGaugh found that compounds created during digestion are involved memory consolidation, the process by which superficial, short-term memories are transformed into meaningful, long-term ones. Such memory enhancement may have been a survival mechanism for early humans, Piomelli said, but it is not as beneficial today and may cause long-term craving for rich, fatty foods. Understanding this mechanism, he said, may herald new approaches for treating obesity and eating disorders. Study results appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More » April 29, 2009 – 4:50 p.m. California funds UCI Alzheimer's stem cell research  UC Irvine neuroscientists Frank LaFerla and Mathew Blurton-Jones (pictured) were awarded $3.6 million April 29 toward the development of an Alzheimer’s disease therapy involving human neural stem cells. LaFerla, director of the UCI Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia, and Blurton-Jones will use the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine grant to test in mice whether human stem cells can reverse dementia caused by Alzheimer’s. The project builds on their previous work showing that mouse neural stem cells can restore memory in mice with brain damage.
More » April 29, 2009 – 4:47 p.m. Graduate student to study spread of malaria  With a $10,000 award from the UC Irvine Graduate Division, Thomas Gilbreath will study how land-use in Africa affects the mosquito population and spread of malaria. This fellowship supports students whose research could have significant public impact. Gilbreath, an ecology & evolutionary biology doctoral student, will take water samples from forested and deforested areas in western Kenya and analyze their microbial contents. He will look for those same microbes in larval mosquitoes to determine their food source. His theory is that deforestation allows more sunlight to reach the ground, warming standing water and creating a richer microbial environment for the larvae. Pictured: Children await blood sampling for malaria parasites at an elementary school in Iguhu, Kenya.
More » April 30, 2009 – 9:38 a.m. UCI researchers find nicotine soothes the nerves  Nicotine – the addictive drug component of cigarette smoke – seems to play an important role in calming negative emotions like anger, UC Irvine psychiatric researchers found. In computer game tests on non-smokers, Jean Gehricke (pictured) and colleagues saw that subjects wearing nicotine patches were more inclined to retaliate less severely to anger provocation. Subsequent brain scan tests showed that nicotine induced metabolic changes in brain areas associated with anger response. The findings support previous UCI work showing that people of an angry disposition are more susceptible to nicotine’s effects. Study results appear in the journal Behavioral and Brain Functions.
More » April 22, 2009 – 2:21 p.m. Systems biology awarded $2.4 million from NIH for training programs  UC Irvine's systems biology program has been awarded two grants totaling $2.4 million from the National Institutes of Health to train graduate students for careers in this field. Conventional biologists seek to discover the components from which life is built - such as genes, proteins, cells and tissues - and their basic functions. Systems biologists take this idea a step further by focusing on the complex networks of interactions that take place among these components, and they try to understand the functions of such networks. Dr. Arthur Lander (pictured) directs the UCI Center for Complex Biological Systems, which brings biologists, mathematicians, physicists, engineers and computer scientists together to study this new, exciting field.
More » April 17, 2009 – 10:48 a.m. Baram wins major epilepsy research award  Dr. Tallie Z. Baram, the Danette Shepard Chair in Neurological Sciences at UC Irvine, has received the Epilepsy Research Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Pharmacology of Antiepileptic Drugs. Presented by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, the award recognizes and stimulates outstanding research leading to better clinical control of epileptic seizures. Baram is considered the world’s leading investigator of the basic neural mechanisms involved in childhood febrile seizures – seizures caused by high fever – and how these prolonged seizures can lead to adult epilepsy. She also won the 2006 Senator Jacob Javits Award in the Neurosciences, the nation’s most prestigious prize for cutting-edge research into brain disorders. She will receive the ASPET award April 18 at the organization’s annual meeting in New Orleans.
More » April 14, 2009 – 11:22 a.m. Landmark children’s study kicks off in OC  The National Children’s Study will begin recruiting future Orange County mothers to take part in the largest and most comprehensive long-term study ever conducted in the United States on child development and health. Starting this spring and summer, interview teams will canvass scientifically selected Orange County neighborhoods for women 18 to 44 who plan to bear children within five years. By tracking their children’s development from gestation to age 21, researchers hope to determine the root causes of many childhood and adult ailments, potentially leading to new preventions and treatments for birth defects and pregnancy-related problems; asthma; obesity; diabetes; and behavior, learning and mental health disorders. UCI is helping to lead this effort in Orange County, where organizers plan to enroll 1,250 women.
More » April 10, 2009 – 4:16 p.m. Doctoral student wins top melanoma research scholar award  Hsiang Ho, a biological chemistry doctoral student at UC Irvine, has received a 2008 Research Scholar Award from the Joanna M. Nicolay Melanoma Foundation. Ho was awarded $10,000 to explore how enzymes that regulate tanning are involved with the progression of the deadly skin cancer. The awards, which began in 2006 for promising melanoma research at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, this year included graduate student researchers at comprehensive cancer centers across the country. Ho works in the laboratory of dermatology professor Dr. Anand Ganesan at UCI’s Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
More » April 10, 2009 – 9:24 a.m. Piomelli receives distinguished investigator award NARSAD, the leading charity for research on mental health disorders, has honored Daniele Piomelli with its prestigious Distinguished Investigator Award. The award includes one-year $100,000 grant that will allow Piomelli, the Louise Turner Arnold Chair in the Neurosciences, to advance his research on new anti-anxiety medicines. He is one of 16 outstanding scientists receiving NARSAD’s 2009 Distinguished Investigator Award. This highly competitive grant program is designed for investigators of brain and psychiatric disorders who have established themselves as leaders in their fields.
More » April 9, 2009 – 4:25 p.m. Ogunseitan named to state panel for green chemistry program Oladele A. Ogunseitan, population health and disease prevention professor and chair at UC Irvine, has been selected to the state’s new Green Ribbon Science Panel. The advisory panel was created for California’s Green Chemistry program, an innovative approach to removing or reducing toxic chemicals in products sold in the state. The panel will help direct the Department of Toxic Substances Control to significantly reduce adverse health and environmental impacts of chemicals used in commerce and develop a green chemistry and chemicals policy in California. Ogunseitan, who studies the environmental and human-health effects of industrial pollutants, also directs the Research and Education in Green Materials component of the University of California’s Systemwide Toxic Substances Research & Teaching Program.
More » April 9, 2009 – 3:24 p.m. New oncology program bridges mainstream, alternative medicine  Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center has started an integrative oncology program to gauge the effectiveness of alternative dietary and lifestyle therapies in cancer prevention and care. Research and patient-care efforts will explore the effectiveness of new treatment and preventative approaches more and more people are trying, such as herbal supplements, nutrition, meditation, pet/animal-assisted therapy, healing touch, acupuncture, music and art therapy and exercise. “Eighty percent of cancer patients use some form of complementary or alternative medicine,” says UCI oncologist Dr. Randall Holcombe (pictured), who started the program. “We recognize that alternative therapies can be effective, and we hope to establish a standard of care for those that work.”
More » April 7, 2009 – 2:44 p.m. UCI stuttering expert to appear on top Brazilian news show  As one of the world’s leading experts on stuttering, Dr. Gerald Maguire of UC Irvine Medical Center is accustomed to media attention, but nothing can compare to his upcoming appearance on Brazilian television that will be seen by 30 million viewers. While he was presenting at a conference there last week, the folks at “Fantástico!” – a highly respected Sunday-evening news magazine show on the Globo network – interviewed him about his cutting-edge research and treatment of stuttering at UCI’s Center for the Medical Treatment of Stuttering, and Maguire’s own experiences as a stutterer. Considered the “60 Minutes” of Brazil, “Fantástico!” has been on the air 35 years and is one of the top-rated TV shows in the world. Maguire’s segment will air Sunday, April 12, so if you’re in Rio, tune in.
More » April 1, 2009 – 11:22 a.m. UCI researchers develop vaccine that could prevent ocular herpes  Lbachir BenMohamed and Dr. Anthony Nesburn with The Gavin S. Herbert Eye Institute of UC Irvine’s ophthalmology department have developed a promising vaccine to give long-term protection from the potentially blinding effects of ocular herpes stemming from the type 1 herpes simplex virus. About half a million Americans have ocular herpes, and while it often remains dormant, it can be activated by psychological, chemical or environmental stresses and infect the corneal region. Current drug therapies can treat it, but do not prevent future attacks. “Our goal is to attack the virus at the root of the disease,” says BenMohamed, a member of UCI’s Institute for Immunology. “While tests are proving the vaccine effective for eye herpes diseases, it also might help curb genital herpes diseases and, potentially, the AIDS epidemic.”
More » News Contact Related topics: Health & Medicine, Science & Technology, BenMohamed, Eye Institute, Herpes, Nesburn March 23, 2009 – 9:07 a.m. New clinic opens for immune system disease care  A new clinic that opened March 20 in the Gottschalk Medical Plaza at UC Irvine addresses one of the largest issues in healthcare – undiagnosed immune system-diseases in children and adults. More than half a million people in the U.S. and 15 million worldwide suffer from primary immune deficiencies. The Jeffrey Modell Diagnostic Center for Primary Immunodeficiency is one of the few clinics in the country dedicated specifically to providing diagnosis and care for those born with improperly functioning immune systems. It's one of 50 clinics worldwide sponsored by the Jeffrey Modell Foundation and Grifols. "Early recognition and diagnosis of PI can save lives and improve health outcomes," said Dr. Sudhir Gupta (pictured), center director and chief of immunology for UC Irvine Healthcare, who was instrumental in the center’s establishment. For appointments, call 949-824-8600.
More » March 5, 2009 – 4:57 p.m. Ampakine treatment reverses memory loss in Huntington’s disease  Compounds created to combat Alzheimer’s disease, sleep disorders and other neurological ailments reverse Huntington’s disease-related memory loss, according to a UC Irvine study. In tests on mice with HD, neurobiologists Gary Lynch (pictured), Danielle Simmons and colleagues found that a very mild ampakine treatment produced dramatic increases in the brain’s chemical processes for creating and storing memories. The study points to the potential of ampakine-based drugs – which Lynch helped discover and are already used in Alzheimer disease clinical trials – as a treatment for people with HD, a rare and fatal neurological disease. Study results appear in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More » March 4, 2009 – 3:02 p.m. New institute expands immunology research  UC Irvine has created a new Institute for Immunology that expands research for treatments of immune-system illnesses and diseases like cancer, multiple sclerosis and diabetes. According to institute director Dr. Paolo Casali (pictured), the institute allows for a broader range of immunology research and supports collaborations among biological sciences and medicine faculty members with their colleagues in biomedical engineering, public health and other campus areas. “The expanded scope of the institute gives us the means to better integrate basic science with medical applications,” he says. The institute also hosts a year-round speaker series that will culminate in the annual Immunology Fair in November and played a key role in establishing the Jeffrey Modell UCI Diagnostic Center for Primary Immunodeficiencies at the Gottschalk Medical Plaza this month.
More » Feb. 26, 2009 – 4:12 p.m. New spine tumor treatment may help breast cancer patients UCI orthopedic researcher Joyce Keyak has found that radioactive bone cement she helped invent can improve treatments for patients when their breast cancer has spread to the spine. In cases where breast cancer metastasizes, almost 75 percent of patients develop spine tumors. In her study, Keyak and UCI colleagues in radiological oncology found that when injected into vertebrae, her bone cement irradiates the tumor while strengthening the bone, making it a valuable alternative to multiple radiation treatments. She presented her data at the annual meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society Feb. 22. "With further development, this may provide a safe treatment for patients with recurrent spinal tumors who currently have few treatment options," she said.
More » Feb. 23, 2009 – 1:45 p.m. Greenfield to help set stimulus package health-research priorities  Dr. Sheldon Greenfield, Center for Health Policy Research executive director, has been appointed co-chair of an Institute of Medicine committee that will establish how to spend the $400 million Comparative Effectiveness Research portion of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009. The committee will work with healthcare leaders to prioritize funding for clinical research on new drugs, devices, procedures, imaging and healthcare delivery systems. The committee report, presented to Congress by June 30, will influence long-term strategies for research funding, Greenfield said. “This is the beginning of a process that will provide important information that will improve the ability of doctors and patients to choose the best treatment options,” he said.
More » Feb. 11, 2009 – 1:41 p.m. Chemistry professor named Scientist of the Year  UCI chemistry professor James Nowick has been named Scientist of the Year by the National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals. Nowick researches the biological interactions between peptides and proteins. Understanding these interactions could lead to new therapies for Alzheimer's disease, cancer and other diseases. Nowick will receive his award at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting Feb. 12-16 in Chicago.
More » Feb. 3, 2009 – 4:48 p.m. Hand surgery pioneer addresses national microsurgery conference  Dr. Neil Jones, orthopedic surgery professor at UC Irvine, presided over the 25th annual meeting of the American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery, held last month in Hawaii. As society president, Jones spoke about the current state of toe-to-hand transfer surgery for finger and thumb reconstruction, which has been used on adults who have sustained traumatic injuries to their hands and children born without fingers or thumbs. As chief of hand surgery at UCI, Jones is a pioneer and one of the world’s leading practitioners of this complex microsurgery procedure. He came to UCI last year from UCLA to establish the Center for Hand and Upper Extremity Surgery.
More » Jan. 23, 2009 – 2:04 p.m. UCI behind world's first embryonic stem cell study in humans  A therapy developed at UC Irvine that made paralyzed rats walk again will become the world’s first embryonic stem cell treatment tested in humans. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the therapy, based on work by a research team led by Hans Keirstead (pictured), co-director of the UCI Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, for a clinical trial in patients with acute spinal cord injury. Geron Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif., will conduct the clinical trial. “This trial was approved only after rigorous safety testing and consultation of countless experts in the field,” Keirstead said. “Any benefit to the patient, even an incremental one, would be a resounding victory.”
More » Jan. 14, 2009 – 2:33 p.m. Keirstead co-authors stem cell white paper  UC Irvine stem cell scientist Hans Keirstead (pictured) co-authored a white paper called "Catalyst For Cures: Embryonic Stem Cell Research," released Wednesday, Jan. 14, by the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research. The paper outlines the views of the nation's leading scientists on the promises and challenges of embryonic stem cell research. It states that "with the knowledge gained in the past decade, stem cell research is more promising than ever." Keirstead is co-director of the UCI Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center.
More » Jan. 14, 2009 – 8:22 a.m. UCI biologist featured on National Geographic Channel  A provocative new theory suggests that all life -- including humans -- descended from viruses. UC Irvine biologist Luis Villarreal (pictured), director of the Center for Virus Research, talked about this topic on "The Virus Hunters," Tuesday, Jan. 13, on the National Geographic Channel. "Villarreal's adventure moves backward and forward in time, and it unfolds around the globe from the heart of Africa, to South Texas, from urban Atlanta to the backcountry of the American west," a program flier stated. "Follow the adventure as investigators unearth the cryptic power of viruses."
More » Jan. 5, 2009 – 3:13 p.m. Toohey honored for humanism in medicine achievements  Dr. Julianne Toohey was one of 45 physicians nationwide to be nominated for the Association of American Medical Colleges’ 2008 Humanism in Medicine Award. Toohey was honored for providing compassionate care to women with high-risk pregnancies and for her achievements in medical education and community involvement. An obstetrics and gynecology associate clinical professor at the UC Irvine School of Medicine, she oversees the third-year medical student ob/gyn clinical training program and works with service organizations like Human Options, Maternal Outreach Management Systems and the Orange County Family Violence Council to provide humanistic, community-based assistance for mothers-to-be in need. “I appreciate this award because I believe as doctors we must treat the entire person and not just a symptom,” said Toohey, who earned her bachelor’s and medical degrees from UCI.
More » Dec. 15, 2008 – 2:03 p.m. Tseng named space research fellow  UC Irvine postdoctoral researcher Dr. Bertrand Tseng (pictured) is one of four young investigators to be named a National Space Biomedical Research Institute fellow. The two-year program offers fellows the opportunity to manage their own space-related biomedical research project. Tseng, who works in the lab of radiation oncology professor Dr. Charles Limoli, will study how solar radiation increases oxidative stress in the body, which can affect the function and regenerative abilities of muscles and organs. He also will receive a $40,000 stipend and attend a summer institute that provides an introduction to NASA’s research facilities programs at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
More » Dec. 11, 2008 – 3:03 p.m. California funds UCI stem cell sorting, tracking research  Two UC Irvine scientists will receive grants totaling nearly $1.6 million to develop and advance stem cell sorting and tracking devices aimed at improving future therapies for people with brain and spinal cord damage, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, and other disorders. The grants were awarded Wednesday, Dec. 10, from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to Lisa Flanagan (pictured) and Orhan Nalcioglu; they are intended to fund tools and technologies that overcome stem cell research roadblocks. CIRM’s governing board awarded 23 grants worth $19 million to 18 institutions statewide. These awards bring total CIRM funding for UCI to $52.8 million, ranking it fourth statewide among recipient institutions.
More » Dec. 10, 2008 – 1:48 p.m. Spine research team takes top prize  Researchers from the UC Irvine Reeve-Irvine Research Center and Department of Orthopaedic Surgery received a top award at the 36th Annual Meeting of the Cervical Spine Research Society. The research team of Dr. Jeremy Smith, Thu Pham, Ryan Anderson, Dr. Nitin Bhatia, Oswald Steward and Dr. Ranjan Gupta won the Resident/Fellow Award for their project, “The role of durotomy and duroplasty following cervical spinal cord injury in an animal model.” Smith (pictured), an orthopedic resident and the study’s first author, also received an award of $2,000. The meeting took place Dec. 4-6 in Austin, Texas
More » Dec. 4, 2008 – 10:34 a.m. UCI neuroscientists play key role in new book  UC Irvine’s strength as a top institution for neuroscience research is well represented in the new book, “From Development to Degeneration and Regeneration of the Nervous System,” the definitive text updating the work of pioneering neurobiologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Co-edited by Charles E. Ribak (pictured), anatomy and neurobiology professor, the book features chapters written by UCI researchers Elizabeth Head, Jorge Busciglio, Aileen Anderson, Brian J. Cummings, Hans Keirstead and Ribak on topics such as degenerative brain disease, neural regeneration, stem cell research and spinal cord injury. The book expands on the fundamental principles discovered more than a century ago by Cajal, a Nobel Prize winner widely considered to be the founder of neuroscience.
More » Nov. 5, 2008 – 9:04 a.m. Meyskens honored for cancer prevention achievements  Dr. Frank L. Meyskens Jr. of UC Irvine will be honored by the American Association for Cancer Research for his contributions to cancer chemoprevention. Meyskens, Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center director and associate vice chancellor of health sciences, will receive the association’s Prevent Cancer Foundation Award for Excellence in Cancer Prevention Research. Meyskens' research and clinical work have led to preventions and treatments for colon, skin and other cancers. Earlier this year, he presented breakthrough findings for the treatment of colon polyps, and he received the American Society of Preventive Oncology’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 2006.
More » Nov. 5, 2008 – 8:43 a.m. Vitamin B3 reduces Alzheimer's symptoms, lesions  An over-the-counter vitamin in high doses prevented memory loss in mice with Alzheimer’s disease, and UC Irvine scientists now are conducting a clinical trial to determine its effect in humans. Nicotinamide, a form of vitamin B3, lowered levels of a protein called phosphorylated tau that leads to the development of tangles, one of two brain lesions associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The vitamin also strengthened scaffolding along which information travels in brain cells, helping to keep neurons alive and further preventing symptoms in mice genetically wired to develop Alzheimer’s. The study by Kim Green (pictured) and Frank LaFerla appears online Wednesday, Nov. 5, in the Journal of Neuroscience.
More » Oct. 24, 2008 – 4:17 p.m. UCI breaks ground on new stem cell building UC Irvine broke ground Friday, Oct. 24, on a new stem cell research building that will strengthen and unify this fast-growing field on campus and throughout Southern California. The four-story, 100,636-square-foot building will house the UCI Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, dozens of laboratory-based and clinical researchers, a stem cell techniques course, a master’s program in biotechnology with an emphasis on stem cell research, and programs and activities for patients and public education. The building, to be named Sue and Bill Gross Hall: A CIRM Institute (pictured), is scheduled for completion in July 2010.
More » Oct. 24, 2008 – 2:55 p.m. Steinert receives distinguished faculty award  To his patients, Dr. Roger Steinert is one of the world’s most accomplished laser eye surgeons. But to UC Irvine faculty and students, he is a teacher of exceptional skill and empathy. And for this, Steinert, the vice chair of clinical ophthalmology, was awarded the 2008-2009 Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching from the Academic Senate – the highest honor UC faculty members can receive from their colleagues. Steinert received the award – which included a commemorative plaque and $5,000 for the Department of Ophthalmology – at an Oct. 14 reception honoring this year's Distinguished Faculty Award winners. In addition to his research and clinical work on cornea, refractive and cataract surgery, Steinert lectures widely to students and his fellow eye surgeons.
More » News Contact Related topics: Health & Medicine, Academic Senate, Biomedical Engineering, Ophthalmology Oct. 22, 2008 – 4:20 p.m. UCI wins environmental health champion award  The Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit in UC Irvine Health Sciences was selected by the Environmental Protection Agency as a 2008 Regional Children’s Environmental Health Champion. The UCI group was chosen for the fact sheets it created for pediatricians and the public to address environmental health hazards caused by the 2007 wildfires that raged in Southern California. The unit was formed to raise awareness and improve the health of children exposed to environmental hazards. Program co-directors Dr. Dean Baker and Dr. James Seltzer were in Washington, D.C., this week to attend the awards ceremony.
More » Oct. 22, 2008 – 1:42 p.m. UCI psychiatrists recruiting for depression study  Are you depressed for more than two weeks? Researchers from UC Irvine and UC San Diego psychiatry departments are recruiting patients for a study of sleep deprivation as a potential treatment for depression. Led by Dr. Joseph Wu of UCI (pictured), the researchers will perform brain scans before and after sleep depravation and study how other changes in sleep time might affect depressed moods. Subjects will be compensated. For more information, contact Carol Schachat at 949-824-3362 or cschacha@uci.edu.
More » Oct. 14, 2008 – 9 a.m. UC Irvine Healthcare boasts more than 90 'Best Doctors'  More than 90 UC Irvine Healthcare physicians made the Best Doctors in America list compiled by Best Doctors, Inc. Physicians were selected through a comprehensive peer-review evaluation that asks doctors, “If you or a loved one needed a doctor in your specialty, to whom would you refer them?” Physicians listed in the database represent the top 5 percent of specialists in the country and 31 specialties, including pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, ophthalmology and dermatology.
More » Oct. 9, 2008 – 4:06 p.m. Small intestine senses, reacts to food toxins  Toxins in food often have a bad, bitter taste that makes people want to spit them out. New UC Irvine research in mice finds that bitterness also slows the digestive process, keeping bad food in the stomach longer and increasing the chances that it will be expelled. This discovery has the potential to help scientists develop better therapies for ailments ranging from cancer to diabetes, and it may explain why certain isolated populations around the world have adapted to eat and enjoy local foods that taste bad to outsiders and make them sick. The study, by Timothy Osborne (pictured), was published online Thursday, Oct. 9, in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
More » Sept. 15, 2008 – 4:39 p.m. Lane awarded Chancellor's Fellow title Thomas Lane, molecular biology & biochemistry professor, has been named a Chancellor’s Fellow, effective Sept. 1, 2008, to Aug. 31, 2011. The title honors scholars of exceptional value to the university whose scholarship achievements show extraordinary promise for contributions to knowledge. The award also provides $25,000 per year to support research efforts for the three-year term. Lane’s research interests include multiple sclerosis, demyelination, chemokines, inflammation, virology and immunology.
More » Aug. 19, 2008 – 4 p.m. UCI chosen as site for nationwide ALS study  The UC Irvine Medical Center has been named one of the sites for a novel national study on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Dr. Tahseen Mozaffar, director of the UCI MDA-ALS Research & Clinical Center, will lead the local effort to collect blood and tissue samples from ALS patients. Knowledge generated from study of these samples will speed the development of biomarkers for the diagnosis and monitoring of this chronic, fatal neuromuscular disease. Study leaders from the ALS Therapy Development Institute also believe the data will help researchers worldwide develop effective therapeutics.
More » Aug. 14, 2008 – 2:53 p.m. UCI biologists find potential new treatment for leukemia type  UC Irvine biologists have discovered a new way to combat a type of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer that afflicts about 1,500 new patients in the U.S. each year. David Fruman (pictured), associate director of the Center for Immunology, working with Michael Lilly of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, found that leukemia cells die quickly when enzymes that promote cell division are blocked. The UCI scientists, along with graduate students Matthew Janes and Michael Kharas, found that a chemical compound called PI-103 inhibited both enzymes and killed mouse and human leukemia cells in laboratory experiments. Their findings will appear in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
More » Aug. 13, 2008 – 4:29 p.m. UCI neuroscientist awarded $3 million state stem cell grant  California’s stem cell research funding agency today awarded UC Irvine neuroscientist Dr. Edwin Monuki $3 million to study and generate a cell type that keeps the brain and spinal cord healthy. Monuki, assistant professor of pathology & laboratory medicine and developmental & cell biology, was one of 23 scientists from 12 institutions to receive a New Faculty Award from the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, the governing body of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Monuki will study the formation of choroid plexus epithelial cells, which produce the cerebrospinal fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord with nourishing chemicals to promote normal nervous system health and function, learning and memory, and neural repair following injury.
More » Aug. 11, 2008 – 2:57 p.m. Chao Center meets top cancer clinical trial standards The Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at UC Irvine is the only cancer clinic in Orange County to be an exemplary clinical trial site, meeting the stringent standards and attributes established this summer by the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Chao’s doctors and researchers maintain a robust diversity of studies designed to advance new cancer treatments. According to Dr. Randall Holcombe (pictured), chief of hematology/oncology and director of clinical trials, the Chao Center has more than 50 ongoing clinical trials, ranging from ones for cancer prevention and early detection to others focusing on advanced treatments. “Our talented team of investigators, nurses, researchers and support staff are on the cutting edge of developing and testing tomorrow’s cancer cures,” Holcombe said. “It’s a tribute to them that we meet these rigorous national clinical trial standards.”
More » July 29, 2008 – 9:57 a.m. Top hand surgeon joins UCI One of the nation’s most acclaimed hand surgeons has joined UC Irvine Healthcare to start the Center for Hand and Upper Extremity Surgery. Dr. Neil Jones comes to UCI from the renowned UCLA Hand Center, where he was director for 15 years. He serves as an orthopedic surgery professor with a second affiliation with Children’s Hospital of Orange County. The center will provide comprehensive diagnosis, surgical treatment and rehabilitation for patients with fractures and nerve and tendon injuries involving the hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder, as well as chronic problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis.
More » July 29, 2008 – 9:33 a.m. Sassone-Corsi finds circadian rhythm-metabolism link  Paolo Sassone-Corsi, Distinguished Professor and chair of pharmacology at UC Irvine, and his colleagues have found a molecular link between circadian rhythms – our own body clock – and metabolism. The discovery reveals new possibilities for treating diabetes, obesity and other related diseases. “This link has far-reaching implications for human illness and aging,” said Sassone-Corsi. Circadian rhythms of 24 hours govern fundamental physiological functions in almost all organisms. Disruption of these rhythms can profoundly influence human health and has been linked to metabolic disorders, insomnia, depression, coronary heart diseases and cancer. The study appeared in the July 25 issue of Cell.
More » July 24, 2008 – 11:03 a.m. Adult stem cells activated in mammalian brain  Adult stem cells originate in a different part of the brain than is commonly believed, and with proper stimulation they can produce new brain cells to replace those lost to disease or injury, a study by UC Irvine scientists says. The true stem cells in the mammalian brain, scientists found, are the ependymal cells lining the ventricles in the brain and spinal cord, rather than cells in the subventricular zone as previously believed. Discovering the cell source is crucial when developing stem cell-based therapies for neurological disorders and injuries such as Parkinson’s disease, stroke or traumatic brain injury. UCI scientists Darius Gleason (pictured), Peter Bryant and James Fallon led the study, published in the journal Neuroscience.
More » July 24, 2008 – 11:01 a.m. Cotman to receive lifetime achievement award for Alzheimer's research  Carl Cotman, director of the Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia at UC Irvine, will receive a lifetime achievement award for his research on Alzheimer's disease Sunday, July 27, at the 11th International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Chicago. The award is given to outstanding scientists who have dedicated themselves to helping millions of people around the world through their research. Cotman, neurology and neurobiology and behavior professor, has authored or co-authored nine books and about 700 articles in the fields of neurobiology, memory and cognition, and the basic mechanisms causing brain dysfunction in aging and the development of Alzheimer's.
More » July 17, 2008 – 3:29 p.m. Felgner to lead development of infectious disease tests  Infectious diseases researcher Philip Felgner will lead a $3.75 million, federally funded effort to develop methods for new diagnostic tests for dangerous infectious diseases such as hemorrhagic fever and salmonella poisoning. Felgner and his UC Irvine colleagues will work with scientists from UC Davis, University of Texas and the University of Hawaii to identify all of the reactive proteins from infectious microorganisms that cause these diseases. Discoveries from this effort will enable the rapid development of tests that can be used for outbreaks worldwide. Since joining UCI five years ago, Felgner has helped attract more than $18 million in grant funding to the growing area of infectious diseases research in the School of Medicine.
More » June 25, 2008 – 4:52 p.m. Anesthesiology adds Perioperative Care to department name  To better reflect its expanded role in patient care, UC Irvine Healthcare’s anesthesiology department has changed its name to the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care. Chair Dr. Zeev N. Kain (pictured) explained the department’s anesthesiologists provide comprehensive care throughout surgery, which along with the use of anesthetics includes preparing patients for surgery, caring for them afterward and treating both acute and chronic pain. “Our name change marks the beginning of an exciting time in which our stellar physicians and researchers explore new opportunities to increase perioperative care for all our patients,” Kain said.
More » June 16, 2008 – 3:56 p.m. UCI noted for Cornelia de Lange syndrome research  UC Irvine has been named a Cornelia de Lange Syndrome Research Center of Excellence for its achievements in research related to this childhood disease. "The research overseen by Drs. Anne Calof (pictured), Arthur Lander and Thomas Schilling has changed the landscape of what we know about CdLS," said Liana Fresher, executive director of the Cornelia De Lange Syndrome Foundation, which made the designation. "Their work brings new hope to the families and professionals who care for individuals affected by the syndrome." UCI biologists helped discover the gene for the syndrome, a disabling, multisystem genetic disease that affects about one in 10,000 children.
More » June 9, 2008 – 10:03 a.m. Stuttering expert Maguire appointed first Kirkup Chair  Dr. Gerald Maguire, the groundbreaking medical researcher and physician whose Center for the Medical Treatment of Stuttering at UC Irvine is advancing care for an affliction that impacts millions, has been named the first Granville and Sidney Kirkup Endowed Chair in Psychiatry and Human Behavior for the Treatment of Stuttering. Maguire says he will use income from the $1 million endowment to support research for stuttering treatment and to help treat patients who do not have the ability to pay for care. In addition to his clinical and research activities, Maguire serves as the new senior associate dean for educational affairs in the School of Medicine and oversees all academic activities for medical students and residents at UCI. “I’m very grateful for Granville and Sidney Kirkup for their generosity and vision in helping people who stutter,” he says.
More » June 2, 2008 – 4:01 p.m. UCI to lead state program for green materials research  UC Irvine has been awarded $1.62 million to lead a University of California program on development of nontoxic alternatives to everyday products, such as electronics, plastics, lighting products, fuels and pesticides. As the Lead Campus for a Green Materials Program, UCI will foster research and graduate-level training at UC campuses and bring together public health, toxicology, materials science, engineering and social science experts to work on innovative approaches to reducing health and environmental hazards associated with materials use in society. Oladele Ogunseitan, professor of public health and social ecology at UCI and international expert on environmental health sciences, will serve as inaugural director. “This program will have great impact on the people of California, because it will draw upon our expertise in these areas and employ it for the health and benefit of society,” he said.
More » May 22, 2008 – 2:48 p.m. Patient trials to test UCI-patented antibodies for arthritis, colitis  New drugs containing antibodies created by UC Irvine biologists Tom Lane and Hans Keirstead will be tested in patient trials for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and ulcerative colitis, inflammatory diseases that afflict millions of people. Mederex, Inc., which holds the license to the UCI-patented antibodies, will conduct Phase 2 trials to assess how well the drugs work in small groups of patients suffering from the diseases. Earlier this decade, Lane and Keirstead discovered the compounds that block the inflammatory response occurring in autoimmune diseases, which also include multiple sclerosis. “This is promising news,” Lane said. “It’s exciting to see your laboratory work get one step closer to helping people live healthier, pain-free lives.”
More » May 21, 2008 – 4:33 p.m. Frank LaFerla named Chancellor's Professor  Frank LaFerla, UC Irvine professor of neurobiology and behavior, has been named a Chancellor's Professor, effective July 1. The title recognizes scholars who have demonstrated unusual academic merit and whose continued promise for scholarly achievement makes them of exceptional value to the university. LaFerla studies molecular changes associated with Alzheimer's disease.
More » May 20, 2008 – 2:34 p.m. Grant to support search for HIV vaccine  Dr. Donald Forthal, chief of Infectious Diseases in the UC Irvine Department of Medicine, will receive $427,000 for two years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to study how antibodies can inhibit HIV, the retrovirus that can lead to AIDS. Forthal is part of a national effort to study how the body’s immune system can be harnessed to produce an effective HIV vaccine; the search has hit numerous roadblocks because the virus is extremely effective at shielding itself from the effects of antibodies. This “return to basics,” Forthal says, represents a renewed effort to understand how vaccines can successively target this elusive, deadly virus.
More » May 28, 2008 – 10:22 a.m. Brits elect Ian Parker to Royal Society  Ian Parker, professor of neurobiology and behavior at UC Irvine, has been has been named to the Royal Society, the national academy of science for the United Kingdom. Parker studies calcium signaling using equipment of his own design and construction. Parker was one of 44 fellows elected to the Royal Society, which supports top scientists, influences science policy, and debates scientific issues with the public.
More » May 19, 2008 – 2:26 p.m. New MedLaw Program honored for aiding low-income families  Representatives from the UC Irvine Family Health Center and Legal Aid Society of Orange County were commended by the City of Santa Ana and Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Santa Ana) for launching the MedLaw Program at a May 16 kick-off event. The program will give free legal aid to low-income families at the health center in downtown Santa Ana. Dr. Charles Vega (pictured), associate clinical professor of family medicine and medical champion for MedLaw, says legal aid for low-income families helps improve and maintain their good health. MedLaw will start with eight cases a month and expand as students from UCI’s new law school, opening in 2009, become involved in this innovative bridging of medicine and law to aid the underserved of Orange County.
More » May 7, 2008 – 1:39 p.m. UCI awarded $27.2 million for new stem cell building  UC Irvine was awarded $27.2 million today (May 7) from the state to build a new stem cell research facility that will unify and strengthen the campus’s fast-growing stem cell biology program and serve as a hub for research in Southern California. When completed, the three-story, 61,600-square-foot building will house the UCI Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, as many as 26 laboratory-based and clinical researchers, a stem cell techniques course for young scientists, a master’s program in biotechnology with an emphasis on stem cell research, and an array of programs and activities that involve and educate patients and the general public. In all, $271 million in stem cell research infrastructure funding was awarded to 12 institutions statewide. This award brings total CIRM funding to UCI to $46.8 million.
More » May 7, 2008 – 10:03 a.m. Ophthalmology joins forces with Lions Eye Foundation  As the nation’s largest volunteer service organization, the Lions Club has supported eye care research and treatment for more than 70 years. And its Lions Eye Foundation of Southern California has established an exclusive partnership with the UC Irvine Department of Ophthalmology to provide high-quality vision care to those in need in Southern California. In addition, the foundation has awarded a $50,000 grant to the department, which will be used for the UC Irvine Eye Institute. “We are helping give back to the community by working with Lions,” said Dr. George Baerveldt, the Leopold Chair in Ophthalmology (pictured). “It’s a perfect match.”
More » May 6, 2008 – 9:56 a.m. UCI heart doctors hold hypertension training program in rural China  China may have a robust economy, but its rural areas are some of the poorest on Earth. And it is in one of these impoverished regions in the Yunnan province where Dr. Robert Detrano, UC Irvine professor of radiological sciences, works to help stem the rising incidence of hypertension and cardiovascular disease. In late April, Detrano, along with Nathan Wong and Jenchen Yang from UCI, hosted a hypertension seminar training program at which they taught village doctors the importance of hypertension screening and how to measure and treat blood pressure. Detrano accomplishes his hypertension training and treatment efforts through a clinic run by the China California Heart Watch, a nonprofit charity of which he is president.
More » May 1, 2008 – 10:50 a.m. Lotfipour appointed to new School of Medicine education role  Dr. Shahram Lotfipour, associate clinical professor of emergency medicine, has been appointed as the assistant dean of clinical science education in the UC Irvine School of Medicine and program director of the proposed combined M.D.-master’s in public health program. In his new role, Lotfipour will oversee a significant part of the clinical curriculum and direct patient care training for medical students. Well known in the School of Medicine for his commitment to education, Lotfipour has been the recipient of numerous teaching awards, including the medical student Excellence in Teaching award for 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. His appointment is effective May 1.
More » April 23, 2008 – 10:53 a.m. Mosqueda receives community service award  Dr. Laura Mosqueda, the Reagan Endowed Chair in Geriatrics at UC Irvine, recently received the Donald N. Phelps Community Service Award from the Elder Financial Protection Network. Mosqueda (pictured) was honored for her contribution to elder financial abuse protection. In addition, Mosqueda will join other UCI geriatricians at the American Geriatric Society Annual Scientific Meeting in Washington next month. Dr. Lisa Gibbs will moderate a symposium on “Death by Neglect: What HealthCare Providers Need to Know;” Dr. Solomon Liao will moderate a pre-conference session on “Intervention and Prevention of Elder Mistreatment: Policy and Practical Implications for Practitioners,” and Mosqueda will speak at a pre-conference session on “Opportunities for Clinical Care and Education: The Importance of an Interdisciplinary Approach.”
More » April 23, 2008 – 9:13 a.m. Times' series on UCI memory research wins national award Last year, UC Irvine neurobiologist Gary Lynch (pictured) published a groundbreaking set of research studies showing how the brain forms memory. And beside him every step of the way was Los Angeles Times staff writer Terry McDermott, who chronicled the struggle and ultimate achievement of the Lynch research team. Last August, the Times published a lengthy four-part series on their effort, titled “Chasing Memory: One Man’s Epic Quest for Understanding,” for which McDermott recently received the 2008 Wistar Institute Science Journalism Award. The judges praised him for bringing to light a scientific problem – how memory is stored – that has defied explanation for decades, and for capturing what it's like to work in a research lab. McDermott’s reporting on Lynch will be expanded into a book, 101 Theory Drive: A Scientist’s Pursuit of the Memory Machine in the Brain, due next year.
More » April 17, 2008 – 10:25 a.m. McGaugh receives lifetime achievement award  James McGaugh, research professor of neurobiology and behavior at UC Irvine, has received the 2008 Norman Anderson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Experimental Psychologists. The award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the field of experimental psychology over the course of their lifetimes. McGaugh's research examines the ways in which drugs and stress hormones improve and impair memory. He has conducted research into memory and the brain for five decades, and he is a founding director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.
More » April 9, 2008 – 2:01 p.m. Dermatology adds new laser treatment for facial rejuvenation  The Department of Dermatology has added the Fraxel Re:pair laser to its set of services at its new Irvine Spectrum clinic, making it among the first in the country to offer this groundbreaking treatment that can tighten skin and remove wrinkles with few side effects. Department researchers helped to develop this laser treatment, with Dr. Christopher Zachary, professor and chair of the department, at the helm of the laboratory and clinical research effort. The Fraxel Re:pair laser is the latest device for safe and effective facial rejuvenation and for the treatment of acne scarring. Apart from having one of the nation’s best equipped laser centers, the new clinic offers expertise in all areas of dermatology and is attracting patients from around the country. Call 949-824-0606 for a consultation.
More » April 3, 2008 – 8:55 a.m. Dr. Antoine Khoury to lead pediatric urology  World-renowned urologist Dr. Antoine Khoury has joined the Department of Urology and will assume the position of chief of pediatric urology at both the UC Irvine Medical Center and the Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Khoury served the last 13 years at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, where he helped build one of the world’s largest pediatric urology facilities. He will hold the Walter R. Schmid Chair in Pediatric Urology, the first endowed chair to be established in urology, and he also will be working with UC Irvine scientists to pursue his interests in tissue bioengineering research.
More » April 1, 2008 – 9:42 a.m. Older corneas found suitable for transplantation  Dr. Ronald Gaster, UC Irvine professor of ophthalmology, participated in a national study showing that older corneas are as suitable for transplant as younger ones. Researchers found the transplant success rate for recipients was the same – 86 percent – for transplants performed with corneas from donors ages 12 to 65 years as for those from donors ages 66 to 75. More than 33,000 corneal transplants are performed each year; the study suggests the pool of corneas for transplants could expand significantly to include donors up to age 75.
More » March 27, 2008 – 11:10 a.m. Coronary calcium testing predicts future heart ailments  Calcium deposits in coronary arteries provide a strong predictor for possible future heart attacks and cardiac diseases, and detecting such deposits can be valuable for promoting overall cardiac health, according to a study led by Dr. Robert Detrano, professor of radiological sciences. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the largest to date – testing some 6,700 people nationwide – and is the first to include racially and ethnically diverse participants. Previous coronary calcium studies featured only small enrollments of white patients. Coronary calcium is a marker for a diseased artery and detected by CT scanning. The researchers found that participants with moderate deposit amounts had more than a seven times greater risk of cardiac heart disease compared to people with no coronary calcium buildup. Participants with large deposit amounts faced a 10 times greater risk.
More » March 25, 2008 – 11:34 a.m. Epilepsy marked by neural ‘hub’ network  An increased number of neuron “hubs” in the epileptic brain may be the root cause for the seizures that characterize the disorder, according to a UC Irvine study. Using a computer model, researchers Robert Morgan and Ivan Soltesz with the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology identified that these hubs – a small number of highly connected neurons – are formed in the hippocampus during the transition from a healthy brain to an epileptic one. The increased number of connections among these hubs, they found, circulate and amplify signals to such a degree that they overwhelm brain networks, leading to epileptic seizures.
The study appears in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More » March 19, 2008 – 4:09 p.m. Lithium chloride slows onset of skeletal muscle disorder  A new UC Irvine study finds that lithium chloride, a drug used to treat bipolar disorder, can slow the development of inclusion body myositis, a skeletal muscle disease that affects the elderly. In the study by scientists Frank LaFerla (pictured) and Masashi Kitazawa, mice genetically engineered to have IBM demonstrated markedly better motor function six months after receiving daily doses of lithium chloride, compared with non-treated mice. The muscles in treated mice also had lower levels of a protein that the study linked to muscle inflammation associated with IBM. These data are the first to show that lithium chloride is a potential IBM therapy. Results of the study appear online this month in the journal Annals of Neurology.
More » March 17, 2008 – 12:16 p.m. Heydt to chair Orange County Arthritis Walk  Dr. John A. Heydt, president and CEO of University Physicians & Surgeons at UC Irvine, will serve as honorary chair of the 2008 Orange County Arthritis Walk. The Arthritis Walk is a nationwide event to raise funds and awareness for the Arthritis Foundation. In 2007, more than 400 walks took place across the country, raising more than $8 million. This year, UC Irvine Healthcare is a premier sponsor of the event, which will take place Sunday, May 18, at the Irvine Spectrum Center. “The Arthritis Foundation is fortunate to have the volunteer leadership of Dr. Heydt,” said Mitchell Jacobs, chair of the Arthritis Foundation, Southern California Chapter. “His commitment to the Arthritis Walk will help us better serve the nearly 1 million people in Orange County living with arthritis.”
More » March 17, 2008 – 9:53 a.m. Fruehauf named 'Top Oncologist' by consumer group  Dr. John P. Fruehauf, associate professor of clinical medicine in the UC Irvine Department of Medicine, was recently named a 'Top Oncologist' by the Consumers Research Council of America. The council provides consumers with information on the highest ranked healthcare professionals and services throughout the U.S. Fruehauf's selection to the council's 2007 Guide to America's Top Oncologists was based on several factors, including his extensive training, experience and board certification in his specialty. His research is focused on mechanisms of drug action and resistance with the goal of improving therapeutic outcomes for cancer patients. His clinical interests include melanoma, renal cell cancer, bladder cancer, prostate cancer and testicular cancer.
More » March 13, 2008 – 8:20 a.m. Suchard wins national teaching award  Dr. Jeff Suchard, associate professor of clinical emergency medicine in the UC Irvine School of Medicine, has received the inaugural Outstanding Contribution in Medical Toxicology Education Award from the American College of Medical Toxicology. This is the only teaching award given by the college and one of just three national awards. Suchard, an expert on the pharmacology and metabolism of drugs and intoxicants, has made a major mark on the national teaching scene through his outstanding work on the Clinical-Pathologic-Case Competition for the North American College of Clinical Toxicology. He has orchestrated this national case competition since 2001, and it has consistently been the most well-attended and reviewed session at the conference.
More » March 11, 2008 – 3:20 p.m. UCI study finds short-term stress can affect learning and memory  Short-term stress lasting as little as a few hours can impair brain-cell communication in areas associated with learning and memory, according to Dr. Tallie Z. Baram, lead author of a new study in the current edition of the Journal of Neuroscience. It has been known that severe stress lasting weeks or months can impair cell communication in the brain’s learning and memory region, but this study provides the first evidence that short-term stress has the same effect. Baram, the Danette Shepard Chair in Neurological Sciences in the School of Medicine, added that the findings can play an important role in developing drugs that might prevent these undesirable effects and offer insights into why some people are forgetful or have difficulty retaining information during stressful situations.
More » March 11, 2008 – 10:23 a.m. Chao Center testing cholesterol drug for skin cancer prevention  Lovastatin is one of the most widely prescribed cholesterol management drugs in the world, but doctors at the UC Irvine Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center are testing whether this popular drug can prevent melanoma, a potentially lethal skin cancer. Dr. Kenneth Linden (pictured) is looking for adults with a history of melanoma to participate in a clinical trial to see if Lovastatin can reverse precancerous changes in abnormal moles. Recently, two large cardiovascular clinical trials found a significant reduction in the incidence of melanoma in patients taking blood lipid-lowering statin drugs. The study is part of a robust effort by Chao Center clinical researchers to discover and test novel compounds and drugs that can prevent cancers. For more information, contact Vanessa Wong at 714-456-6210 or vanessw@uci.edu
More » March 7, 2008 – 2:53 p.m. New stem cell technique improves genetic alteration  UC Irvine researchers have discovered a dramatically improved method for genetically manipulating human embryonic stem cells, making it easier for scientists to study and potentially treat thousands of disorders ranging from Huntington’s disease to muscular dystrophy and diabetes. The technique for the first time blends two existing cell-handling methods to improve cell survival rates and increase the efficiency of inserting DNA into cells. The new approach is up to 100 times more efficient than current methods at producing human embryonic stem cells with desired genetic alterations. Peter Donovan, Leslie Lock and Kristi Hohenstein led the study, which appears online this week in the journal Stem Cells.
More » March 5, 2008 – 11:20 a.m. Yale's Kain appointed chair of anesthesiology Dr. Zeev N. Kain, a Yale anesthesiologist widely recognized for work helping children through the stress and pain of surgery, has been named professor and chair of UC Irvine’s Department of Anesthesiology. Kain, who was appointed after a national search, also will serve as UC Irvine Medical Center’s anesthesiologist in chief and as associate dean for clinical research in the School of Medicine. He was executive vice chair of anesthesiology at Yale University School of Medicine and anesthesiologist in chief and director of the Pediatric Surgery Center at the Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital. “The recruitment of Zeev Kain is a boon for the Department of Anesthesiology and for all of UC Irvine Health Affairs,” said Dr. David N. Bailey, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine. “He will bring inspired leadership to anesthesiology and be instrumental in spearheading new research initiatives.”
More » Feb. 29, 2008 – 1:04 p.m. Soltesz book examines new approaches for epilepsy research  Ivan Soltesz, professor and chair of anatomy & neurobiology at UC Irvine, is co-editor of a new book titled Computational Neuroscience in Epilepsy. Soltesz, who has received a Senator Jacob Javits Award in the Neurosciences, the nation’s most prestigious prize for cutting-edge research on brain injuries and illnesses, is on the forefront of research looking into epilepsy, and his book looks at the ever-increasing power of computers to analyze and predict the behavior of brain-cell networks in healthy and diseased states. The book also offers new approaches for the use of technology to point the way for novel treatments for neurological diseases like epilepsy. His co-editor is Kevin Staley of the University of Colorado, and the book is published by Academic Press.
More » Feb. 21, 2008 – 2:28 p.m. UCI to test if grape diet can block colon cancer  Can a diet rich in grapes help prevent colon cancer? Dr. Randall Holcombe of the UC Irvine Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is recruiting participants to see whether a component in grapes, resveratrol, blocks genes involved in the development of colon cancer. Study participants will be placed on a monitored diet for two weeks that avoids foods rich in resveratrol, then they will get a biopsy of the colon lining. Next, they will supplement their diet each day with 1/3 of a pound to 1 pound of fresh grapes for two weeks and have the biopsy procedure repeated. Holcombe has shown resveratrol’s effectiveness in previous studies. Those interested should call study coordinator Micii Martinez at 714-456-7069.
More » Feb. 20, 2008 – 11:22 a.m. Koenig named a “hero” of emergency medicine  The American College of Emergency Physicians has recognized Dr. Kristi Koenig, UC Irvine professor of emergency medicine, as a “Hero of Emergency Medicine.” The campaign, part of ACEP’s 40th anniversary, recognizes emergency physicians who have made significant contributions to emergency medicine, their communities and their patients. “Emergency physicians are on the front lines of America’s health care system, providing the essential community service of emergency care,” ACEP President Dr. Linda L. Lawrence said. “The dedication, passion and commitment Dr. Koenig has shown embodies the vision of ACEP’s founders and the ideals of our specialty.” Koenig, who also serves as director of public health awareness and co-director, EMS and Disaster Medical Sciences Fellowship at UCI, is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of homeland security, disaster and emergency medicine, emergency management, and emergency medical services.
More » Feb. 15, 2008 – 9:21 a.m. Mitochondrial mutations cause degenerative heart, muscle disease  A single change in the DNA of mitochondria – the cellular power plants that generate energy in all human cells – has been found to cause degenerative heart and muscle disease in mice, according to a study led by Douglas Wallace, director of the Center for Molecular and Mitochondrial Medicine at UC Irvine. Mice harboring the mutation appeared normal early in life, but after a year they developed marked muscle and heart disease similar to what can develop in humans. The study, which appears in Science, provides further proof that mitochondria play a central role in human health, according to Wallace, one of the world’s leading investigators of mitochondrial genetics.
More » Feb. 14, 2008 – 9:25 a.m. Michael Buchmeier, renowned virologist, comes to UCI  Renowned virologist Michael Buchmeier has joined the UC Irvine faculty as professor of community & environmental medicine in the School of Medicine and molecular biology & biochemistry in the School of Biological Sciences. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology, Buchmeier comes to UCI from the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, where he made notable advances in the study of infectious diseases like SARS and in viruses linked to central nervous system diseases like multiple sclerosis. He will continue his work as associate director of the Pacific-Southwest Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research at UCI, looking to develop vaccines and antivirals for emerging viruses. He also is overseeing the establishment of a Biosafety Level-3 laboratory in the new Biological Sciences 3 building and will join the Center for Virus Research and the Center for Immunology.
More » Feb. 11, 2008 – 4:34 p.m. Health policy grant to build foundation for tailored therapeutics  Dr. Sheldon Greenfield and Sherrie Kaplan, co-directors of the Center for Health Policy Research in the UC Irvine School of Medicine, have been awarded a one-year planning grant of $500,000 by the Lilly Pharmaceutical Corporation to build a foundation for a clinical approach to tailored therapeutics – providing the right drug to the right patient at the right time. Greenfield (pictured) and Kaplan will be developing feasible risk measures both for the clinical trials and treatments that take genetics, patient diversity and treatment outcomes into account for diabetes and mental health. Information from this pilot study will be used in larger-scale studies and in an effort to have the FDA improve how clinical trials for new drugs are being conducted. Greenfield and Kaplan started the Center for Health Policy Research when they joined the UCI faculty in 2003.
More » Feb. 6, 2008 – 9:13 a.m. Dr. Christopher Zachary demonstrates laser device on NBC's Today Show  Dr. Christopher Zachary, clinical professor and chair of dermatology at UC Irvine, appeared on NBC's Today Show Friday, Feb. 1, to discuss a breakthrough laser for the treatment of wrinkles, fine lines, furrows and other skin irregularities. According to Zachary, the Fraxel re:pair(tm) laser, now available at UC Irvine Medical Center, creates results that approach that of a face lift. "There is no doubt in my mind that this is the biggest breakthrough in dermatology in the last five to 10 years," Zachary said. To watch the Today Show segment, click
More » Feb. 4, 2008 – 5:05 p.m. UCI's Department of Neurolgical Surgery receives full accreditation  UC Irvine's Department of Neurological Surgery received full accreditation for its neurosurgery residency training program by the American Council on Graduate Medical Education. Neurosurgery is one of the most difficult specialties to achieve residency training program status, and UCI is only the sixth new program approved in the U.S. over the last 21 years. Approval by ACGME requires that a program have expert neurosurgery faculty on board and demonstrate excellence in clinical care and clinical and basic science research. Under the leadership of Department Chairman Dr. Mark Linskey (pictured), the program seeks to become a top-tier neurosurgery training program and the preferred regional site for neurosurgery continuing medical education.
More » Feb. 1, 2008 – 2:53 p.m. UC Regents support new hospital construction and plans for expansion  The construction of University of California, Irvine Health Affairs’ new university hospital in Orange is on budget and ahead of schedule by approximately three months. Hospital administrators expect that the building will be completed in October and ready for patient occupation by February 2009. In January, the UC Board of Regents approved a proposal for an additional $242 million in Phase II financing that will expand the number of beds and operating rooms in the new hospital and pay for renovations to existing medical center buildings. Phase II is expected be completed in mid- to late-2011. When finished, the medical center will contain 424 licensed beds, 19 operating rooms, 36 pre- and post-operative beds and a 24-bed limited stay unit.
More » Jan. 30, 2008 – 1:40 p.m. Medical physics residency program accredited The medical physics residency program in UC Irvine's Department of Radiation Oncology was recently accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Education Programs. CAMPEP is a national accrediting body sponsored by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, American College of Radiology, American College of Medical Physics and the Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine. Its mission is to set standards for the training of medical physicists. The residency program prepares medical physicists for certification by the American Board of Radiology in Radiological Physics and to practice in the clinical setting. The UCI program is one of 20 residency programs in the U.S. and Canada that have achieved accreditation status. It is one of two in California (along with Stanford) and the only one in Southern California.
More » Jan. 30, 2008 – 11:31 a.m. UCI bariatric surgeons to undertake novel VBLOC Therapy study  Dr. Ninh Nguyen, chief of gastrointestinal surgery at the UC Irvine Medical Center, and colleagues are seeking participants in a nationwide clinical study to test a new, minimally invasive way to treat morbid obesity without altering the stomach through gastric bypass surgery or laparoscopic banding. The Empower study will employ a novel VBLOC Therapy, in which implanted electrodes will block nerve signals carried between the brain and the digestive system that control sensations of hunger, satisfaction and fullness. The five-year safety and efficacy study is being held at five U.S. locations and a site in Australia.
More » Jan. 18, 2008 – 3:14 p.m. Men at greater risk of complications from too much iron in blood  The world’s largest long-term study of people with a genetic blood disorder has found that men with a specific pair of genes are 30 times more likely than women to develop complications, including major organ damage to the liver and heart, as a result of blood iron overload, or haemochromatosis. Christine McLaren, professor of epidemiology at UC Irvine and study investigator, said her work is the first to quantify how many people carrying the most common genes for haemochromatosis will develop disease. While a common concern for women is having too little iron, this study clearly demonstrates that far more men need to be concerned about absorbing too much iron than previously thought. Results appear in the Jan. 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
More » Jan. 18, 2008 – 3:09 p.m. Cerebral cortex study points to stem cell treatment possibilities  Dr. Edwin Monuki, doctoral student Karla Hirokawa and their colleagues in the departments of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine and Developmental & Cell Biology have identified a gene that is specifically responsible for generating the cerebral cortex, a finding that could lead to stem cell therapies to treat brain injuries and diseases such as stroke and Alzheimer’s. The researchers found that a gene called Lhx2 serves as the long-sought cortical “creator” gene that instructs stem cells in the developing brain to form the cerebral cortex. This portion of the brain is responsible for higher sensory and cognitive functions, such as language, decision-making and vision. Without this gene, cortical cells will not form. This new understanding of Lhx2’s role in cortical development can potentially be used in stem cell research efforts to grow new cortical neurons that can replace damaged ones in the brain. Study results appear in the Jan. 18 issue of Science.
More » News Contact Related topics: Health & Medicine, Developmental Biology, Pathology, Research, Stem Cells Jan. 16, 2008 – 2:52 p.m. UCI physicians to attend emergency management summit UC Irvine emergency medicine physicians Tareg Bey, Kristi Koenig (pictured) and Carl Schultz will attend the second annual National Emergency Management Summit in Washington, D.C., Feb. 3 – 5. The summit is the nation’s leading forum on medical preparation and response to disasters, epidemics and terrorism. Koenig, co-director of Emergency Medical Services and Disaster Medical Sciences Fellowship, UC Irvine School of Medicine, will lead a special half-day session on hospital surge capacity and what medical professionals should be doing to prepare for disaster.
More » Jan. 11, 2008 – 3:40 p.m. Diversity in Medicine series addresses healthcare disparities In America’s ever evolving healthcare system, issues of diversity and disparities grow more and more significant. To help address them, the 10th annual Diversity in Medicine series provides information to assist healthcare professionals and medical students in maximizing patient care quality in our diverse society. Sponsored by the UC Irvine Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, and the schools of medicine and biological sciences, the 10-session series will explore the customs, values and behaviors of various cultures and how these factors affect the way healthcare is delivered. More than 200 people attended the first session Jan. 9, which featured a discussion on African-American healthcare issues, and upcoming topics include elderly health, biomedical ethics and Latino health. Chancellor Michael Drake will lead a session on “The Importance of Diversity” Jan. 30. The series, which is free and open to the public, takes place at 5 p.m. Wednesdays through March 12 in the Tamkin Student Lecture Building at the School of Medicine.
More » Jan. 9, 2008 – 1:04 p.m. 9/11 stress increases risk of heart problems  Stress and fear in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks may be making Americans sicker, according to a new study by UC Irvine researchers.
Researchers Roxane Cohen Silver and Alison Holman (pictured) found that acute stress responses to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon have been linked to a 53 percent increase in cardiovascular ailments over three years following the attacks. Most of the study participants watched the attacks on television and had no personal connection to the victims.
"We must consider the potential public health impact of indirect exposure to extreme stress since the majority of our respondents were exposed to the attacks only by watching television,” Silver said.
More » Jan. 7, 2008 – 11:10 a.m. Smallpox vaccine alternative identified Infectious diseases researchers Philip Felgner (pictured) and Huw Davies with the University of California, Irvine Department of Medicine have shown the effectiveness of a potential alternative to the existing smallpox vaccine. They found that the modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) produced the same antiviral response in human and animal studies as the current smallpox vaccine, Dryvax. The study is part of a national effort to develop a replacement for the current biodefense stockpile of Dryvax vaccine, which causes serious complications in some people. Smallpox has been eradicated worldwide since 1980, but it has been identified as a potential bioterrorism agent. Study results appear in the Journal of Virology.
More » Jan. 3, 2008 – 9:50 a.m. UCI scientists find new way to sort stem cells  UC Irvine scientists have found a new way to sort stem cells that should be quicker, easier and more cost-effective than current methods. The technique could in the future expedite therapies for people with conditions ranging from brain and spinal cord damage to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. The method uses electrodes on a tiny, inch-long glass slide to sort cells by their electric charges and has been used in cancer research. The stem cell field suffers from a lack of tools for identifying and sorting cells. This important discovery could add a new tool to current sorting methods, which generally require expensive, bulky equipment. The study, led by Lisa Flanagan, Ed Monuki and Abraham Lee, was published in the journal Stem Cells.
More » Dec. 19, 2007 – 3:48 p.m. Skateboard injuries incur economic pain, too  Researchers from UC Irvine School of Medicine's Center for Trauma and Injury Prevention have found that the economic aches attached to a skatepark-related injury can be as great as the physical pains. Dr. Federico Vaca and colleagues tracked emergency room patients at UC Irvine Medical Center who injured themselves at a nearby skatepark and found the average cost for each injury was nearly $3,200. Medical costs comprised two-thirds of this amount, and lost wages accounted for the other third for both patients and their families. Economic impact was greatest on working adults older than 25 who missed an average of 17 days of work because of their injuries. The study appears in Clinical Medicine & Research.
More » Dec. 18, 2007 – 1:29 p.m. UCI engineer awarded $2.1 million for stem cell research  A UC Irvine engineer has been awarded $2.1 million from the state to support a study on the effect of embryonic stem cells on heart disease. Andrew Putnam (pictured) is one of 22 scientists statewide to receive a New Faculty Award from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the state agency tasked with distributing funds for stem cell research. The Independent Citizens Oversight Committee that governs CIRM awarded more than $54 million in New Faculty Awards, which support promising young scientists embarking on stem cell research. The grant brings total CIRM funding for UCI to $19.6 million.
More » Dec. 14, 2007 – 11:21 a.m. Genetic switch for circadian rhythms discovered  UC Irvine researchers, led by Paolo Sassone-Corsi, Distinguished Professor and pharmacology chair, have identified the chemical switch that triggers the genetic mechanism regulating our internal body clock. The finding, which uncovers the most specific information about the body’s circadian rhythms to date, identifies a precise target for new pharmaceuticals that can treat sleep disorders and a host of related ailments. The study appears in the Dec. 13 issue of Nature. Sassone-Corsi is one of the world’s leading researchers on circadian rhythms, which help regulate a host of body functions, from sleep patterns and hormonal control to metabolism and behavior.
More » Dec. 14, 2007 – 11:11 a.m. Hypertension patients not reaching blood pressure goals  Nearly three-fourths of American adults with coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes or other conditions that raise the risk for cardiovascular complications also have high blood pressure, according to a UC Irvine Heart Disease Prevention Program study. The report also notes that although most of these individuals are treated for hypertension, only one-third to one-half reach blood pressure goals. Blood pressure control remains a problem in the United States and around the world, said Nathan Wong, program director, and recent estimates indicate little change in the prevalence of hypertension. Although there seems to be some improvements in treatment, hypertension remains inadequately controlled, the study concludes.
More » Dec. 12, 2007 – 10:06 a.m. UCI scientists and advocate give presentation on Huntington's disease Hans Keirstead (pictured), Oswald Steward, Frances Saldana and Robert Pacifici gave a presentation Wednesday, Dec. 12, about Huntington's disease to the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, the governing body of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. CIRM is tasked with giving out state money for stem cell research. The goal of the presentation was to raise awareness of Huntington's disease with CIRM and encourage funding of new and existing stem cell projects involving the disease. The meeting took place at UCLA. Keirstead is co-director of UC Irvine's Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, and Steward is director of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center.
More » Dec. 10, 2007 – 11:11 a.m. Shah receives physician service award  Dr. Nitin Shah, UC Irvine clinical professor of anesthesiology, has received the 2007 Physician Service Award from the Indian Medical Association of Southern California. He has played a leading role in the free annual health fair at the Jain Center of Southern California and has participated in numerous other health fairs across the southland. In addition, he has led flu vaccine drives in Orange and San Diego counties and has organized and participated in efforts to provide advanced care to people in India by teams of U.S. healthcare providers.
More » Dec. 10, 2007 – 8:24 a.m. Herbal extract found to increase lifespan of fruit flies  The herbal extract of a yellow-flowered mountain plant indigenous to the Arctic regions of Europe and Asia increased the lifespan of fruit fly populations, according to a UC Irvine study. Flies that ate a diet rich with Rhodiola rosea, an herbal supplement long used for its purported stress-relief effects, lived on an average of 10 percent longer than fly groups that didn’t eat the herb. Although this study does not present clinical evidence that Rhodiola can extend human life, the herb is a promising candidate for further anti-aging research, said Mahtab Jafari, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences and study leader. Study results appear in the online version of Rejuvenation Research.
More » News Contact Related topics: Health & Medicine, Integrative Medicine, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Research Dec. 10, 2007 – 8:22 a.m. Greater parental guidance suggested for noisy toy use  UC Irvine hearing researchers tested the noise levels of some of the more popular toys this holiday season. They found that if parents aren’t careful about how these and other popular toys are used, a season of joy might turn into a lifetime of hearing loss for their children. The researchers warn that many of these emit sounds at decibel levels high enough to cause permanent hearing damage if not used properly. They found that a number of the toys reach decibel levels of 100 or more, equivalent to the sound of a power saw, subway train or power mower. This doesn’t make these toys unsafe, they say, if they are used properly, making it important for parents to offer greater guidance for their proper and safe use.
More » Dec. 10, 2007 – 8:20 a.m. School of Medicine breaks ground on state-of-the-art medical education building  A new medical education building for the UC Irvine School of Medicine will help prepare tomorrow’s doctors for healthcare in the digital age. At a Dec. 7 groundbreaking ceremony, Chancellor Michael V. Drake and Dr. David Bailey, vice chancellor of health affairs, unveiled the $40.5 million, 65,000-square-foot building, which will be the hub of all educational activities for the more than 400 UCI medical students, and home to the innovative Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community. The building will include a state-of-the-art telemedicine training center. “This medical education building will play an important part in supporting new initiatives and technologies in teaching and healthcare delivery that will establish UC Irvine as a national leader in medical education,” Bailey said.
More » News Contact Related topics: Health & Medicine, Medical Education, PRIME-LC, Telemedicine, University News Dec. 4, 2007 – 2:59 p.m. Jafari receives distinguished teaching award from Academic Senate  Mahtab Jafari, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences at UC Irvine, was named the 2007-08 recipient of the Distinguished Assistant Professor Award for Teaching. The award is given out by the Irvine Division of the Academic Senate for outstanding contributions in the classroom. Jafari joined UCI in 2005 and developed the undergraduate major proposal for the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. She has developed and taught two courses for this new major. In her research, Jafari studies anti-aging pharmacology.
More » Dec. 3, 2007 – 10:54 a.m. Cognitive scientist awarded $500K to study motion perception  Myron Braunstein, professor emeritus of cognitive sciences at UC Irvine, has received a $500,000, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how people perceive motion based on characteristics such as speed and object size. Using motion pictures of real-world scenes, Braunstein and co-investigator George Andersen from UC Riverside – a former student of Braunstein’s – measure participants’ abilities to gauge motion in a 3D environment, based on varying speeds, sizes and other characteristics of moving objects.
More » Nov. 28, 2007 – 7:56 a.m. UC Irvine Healthcare boasts 82 of the “Best Doctors in America”  Eighty-two UC Irvine Healthcare physicians have been named to the 2007 Best Doctors in America list by Best Doctors, Inc., an independent database that includes 5 percent of the top doctors in the U.S. The list of “Best Doctors” was compiled using a peer-review process and survey that asked physicians to evaluate the skills and talents of other physicians in their specialty. Physicians were asked: “If you or a loved one needed a doctor in your specialty, to whom would you refer them?” The UC Irvine physicians were chosen for their breadth of experience, reliability and professionalism. The list of UC Irvine physicians can be seen on the Healthcare website.
More » Nov. 27, 2007 – 12:17 p.m. Professor James Jester appointed Skirball Endowed Chair  James Jester, professor of ophthalmology and biomedical engineering, has been named the Jack H. Skirball Endowed Chair, a position established this year in recognition of the contributions made to ophthalmology research by the Skirball Foundation. The chair, which carries a $1 million endowment, was created to honor a scholar and teacher of the highest distinction whose research has had an impact. The chair may be held for five-year renewable terms. Jester is a recognized international leader in the cell biology of corneal wound healing. He maintains an active interest in developing new imaging approaches using advanced laser technology and is part of the Refractive Surgery Group at UC Irvine.
More » Nov. 21, 2007 – 9:34 a.m. Mulnard named fellow of American Academy of Nursing  Ruth Mulnard, former associate director of the UC Irvine Institute for Brain Aging & Dementia, has been named a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. Fellows are nursing leaders in education, management, practice and research, and they are invited on the basis of leadership and accomplishment. Mulnard, an associate professor in UCI's nursing science program, has been active in the National Institute of Aging, the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study Clinical Trials Consortium, and UCI's Institutional Review Board.
More » Nov. 20, 2007 – 9:20 a.m. MBA student shares moment with president, governor during wildfire relief efforts  Aaron Byzak, a health care executive MBA student at UC Irvine's Paul Merage School of Business, met President Bush (pictured) and Gov. Schwarzenegger as the two leaders toured an evacuation center in Rancho Bernardo that Byzak worked at during the recent California wildfires. Byzak, who is a health policy advisor in San Diego County and also worked on an ambulance for six years, helped ensure area evacuation centers were properly supplied and assisted affected residents in navigating through the process of rebuilding their homes during the emergency. Byzak and his colleagues worked with the California State Senate, U.S. Congress, Red Cross and United States Marine Corps to provide a host of resources, including medical supplies, cots, staffing, food and blankets.
More » Nov. 19, 2007 – 5:06 p.m. Study shows how embryos regulate vitamin A derivatives  Human embryos that get too much or too little retinoic acid, a derivative of vitamin A, can develop into babies with birth defects. New research at UC Irvine shows for the first time how embryonic cells may regulate levels of retinoic acid, giving scientists insight into how it acts as a signal between cells to control development of the brain, limbs and many other tissues in embryos. Thomas Schilling, Richard White, Qing Nie and Arthur Lander found that if the level of retinoic acid in zebrafish becomes too high, an enzyme called cyp26a1 degrades the excess and brings it back to normal. When levels drop too low, proteins called fibroblast growth factors, or FGFs, stop the retinoic acid from degrading as rapidly. The study appears Tuesday, Nov. 20, in the journal Public Library of Science Biology.
More » Nov. 19, 2007 – 2:36 p.m. Cancer book receives positive review in Science  A new book on the evolution of cancer by Steven Frank, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Irvine, has received a positive, full-page review in Science magazine. "Frank moves the field forward, narrowing the gap between a tragic disease of everyday life and the Darwinian world of the genome," the review states. Frank's book, Dynamics of Cancer: Incidence, Inheritance, and Evolution, is the first comprehensive analysis of how particular genetic and environmental causes influence the age of the onset of cancer.
More » Nov. 16, 2007 – 4:59 p.m. Dr. Hungs to discuss sleep disorders on TV  Dr. Marcel Hungs, neurologist and director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at UC Irvine Medical Center, will discuss sleep disorders and what causes them during three upcoming television segments. Some of the most common sleep disorders Hungs treats include sleep apnea, snoring, insomnia, narcolepsy, restless leg syndrome, nocturnal seizures and parasomnias. He will discuss how sleep disorders are diagnosed at UC Irvine’s four-bed sleep laboratory and what treatments can help patients sleep through the night. Air dates and times are 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 28, and 1:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 30, on KOCE Channel 50 in Orange County, and 6 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 5, on KVCR, Channel 24 in San Bernardino, Riverside and Los Angeles Counties. Nov. 15, 2007 – 4:12 p.m. ACS grant to help young cancer researchers  The American Cancer Society has awarded UC Irvine a three-year, $300,000 Institutional Research Grant to allow junior faculty members, including those newly recruited, the opportunity to establish new cancer research projects. In addition, the Office of Research and the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center will contribute $180,000 to the effort. Les Redpath (pictured), principal investigator for the grant and a professor of radiation oncology, says the funding will support a minimum of four new projects annually. Any cancer-related research by an eligible UCI faculty member will be considered for funding; a call for proposals will go out Jan. 1. The grants, Redpath adds, will help foster new research and can be a valuable recruiting tool for new faculty members.
More » Nov. 15, 2007 – 10:30 a.m. Grape powder blocks genes linked to colon cancer Low doses of freeze-dried grape powder inhibit genes linked to the development of sporadic colorectal cancer, UC Irvine cancer researchers found. Their study suggests that a diet rich in grapes may help prevent the third most common form of cancer, one that kills more than a half a million people worldwide each year. The effective amount of grape powder used in the study equals a half glass of wine or 1 pound of grapes, which is equivalent to three dietary servings of grapes. Study leader Dr. Randall Holcombe of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and his colleagues are currently designing a clinical cancer prevention study to see how a daily diet of 1 pound of grapes affects the genetics behind colon cancer.
More » Nov. 14, 2007 – 2 p.m. Language barriers adversely impact healthcare quality  For the millions of Americans whose native tongue isn’t English, language remains a critical road block to quality healthcare, according to researchers in UC Irvine's Center for Health Policy Research. They found that language barriers between patients and healthcare providers result in longer hospital stays, more medical errors and lower patient satisfaction. In a nationwide study of more than 2,700 patients who have limited English-language proficiency, Dr. Quyen Ngo-Metzger (pictured) and colleagues found that these language barriers were associated with less health education, poorer doctor-patient interactions and lower patient satisfaction. The study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, stresses the importance of training bilingual healthcare providers to meet the needs of the growing multicultural U.S. population.
More » Nov. 8, 2007 – 2 p.m. Mukamel receives national award for research on older women  Dana Mukamel, UC Irvine professor of medicine and researcher in the Center for Health Policy Research, was presented with the 2007 Aetna Susan B. Anthony Award for Excellence in Research on Older Women and Public Health by the Gerontological Health Section of the American Public Health Association. Mukamel received the award Nov. 5 in Washington, D.C. at the association's 135th annual meeting and exposition. The Gerontological Health Section's mission is to stimulate public health actions to improve the health, functioning and quality of life of older persons and to call attention to their healthcare needs. Section members engage in research and advocacy aimed at reforming governmental healthcare programs, particularly Medicare and Medicaid.
More » Nov. 8, 2007 – 10:36 a.m. Study to address disparities for diabetes care  Sherrie Kaplan and Dr. Sheldon Greenfield, executive co-directors of UC Irvine’s Center for Health Policy Research, have been awarded a five-year grant for $2.7 million by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to increase the adoption of best practices for improving health outcomes for diabetes patients. With a focus on addressing disparities, the study will include a randomized trial of “community coaches” (volunteer Latinos and Vietnamese-Americans drawn from the patients’ community who themselves have diabetes), who will be training patients to be more participatory in their interactions with the treating physicians and thereby taking more control over their disease management. This grant is a follow-up to a three-year, $1.9 million grant awarded to Kaplan (pictured) from the Novo Nordisk Corporation in 2005.
More » Nov. 6, 2007 – 4:49 p.m. Marijuana-like brain chemicals work as antidepressant Daniele Piomelli, the Louise Turner Arnold Chair in Neurosciences and director of the Center for Drug Discovery at the University of California, Irvine, and researchers have found that boosting the amounts of a marijuana-like brain transmitter called anandamide effectively works as an antidepressant. The findings raise the hope that the mood-elevating properties of marijuana can be harnessed to treat depression. Marijuana itself has shown no clinical use for depression, Piomelli said, but specific drugs that amplify the actions of natural marijuana-like transmitters in the brain are showing great promise. For the study, Piomelli and colleagues in Italy and the U.S. employed a synthetic molecule they created called URB597. Clinical studies on drugs based on the molecule will begin in 2008.
More » Nov. 6, 2007 – 4:43 p.m. Cancer Center director publishes poetry book  Dr. Frank L. Meyskens Jr., associate vice chancellor for the UC Irvine College of Health Sciences and director of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, has published a book of poetry titled Aching for Tomorrow. Meyskens, a renowned professor and researcher in the area of cancer prevention and treatment, uses poetry to convey the emotional journey experienced by cancer patients and their physicians. Advanced copies of Aching for Tomorrow will be sold at Meyskens’ book signing at noon Friday, Nov. 16, at the UC Irvine Medical Center cafeteria patio (cost: $14). Royalties will be contributed to the Meyskens Patient Care Fund of the Chao Family Comprehensive Center, which is used for non-medical expenses. The Cancer Center is one of only 39 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive centers in the nation and the only one in Orange County.
More » Nov. 6, 2007 – 11:32 a.m. Stem cells can improve memory after brain injury  New UC Irvine research is among the first to demonstrate that neural stem cells may help to restore memory after brain damage. In the study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, mice with brain injuries experienced enhanced memory – similar to the level found in healthy mice – up to three months after receiving a stem cell treatment. Scientists believe the stem cells secreted proteins called neurotrophins that protected vulnerable cells from death and rescued memory. This creates hope that a drug to boost production of these proteins could be developed to restore the ability to remember in patients with neuronal loss. UCI scientists Frank LaFerla, Mathew Blurton-Jones and Tritia Yamasaki worked on this study.
More » Oct. 31, 2007 – 2:23 p.m. UCI dedicates more resources to stem cell research  UC Irvine has dedicated five new faculty positions to its stem cell biology program, representing a commitment of about $17 million over the next 10 years. The new recruits, to be hired in the School of Biological Sciences, will be housed in the new stem cell research building (rendition shown), which UCI currently is raising money to construct. The new faculty members will focus on basic and discovery research, and on using stem cells to treat disease. They will help create an environment in which basic research can be translated into treatments for a wide variety of human diseases and disorders. Peter Donovan and Hans Keirstead, who co-direct the UCI Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, have pioneered basic research on stem cells and development of stem cell-based treatments. To date, UCI has garnered $17.5 million in funding from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and ranks fourth in CIRM funding.
More » Oct. 30, 2007 – 10:08 a.m. UC Irvine Medical Center chosen top hospital by nurses  UC Irvine Medical Center has been selected as a top hospital by registered nurses who participated in a survey in ADVANCE for Nurses magazine. In its first “Readers’ Choice Survey for Southern California,” ADVANCE asked readers to rank 75 Southern California hospitals in five categories that matter most to the nursing profession: quality of care, organizational culture, professional development, communications and retention efforts. UC Irvine Medical Center and four other hospitals received the highest scores across all five categories and are highlighted in the magazine’s Oct. 29 issue. In addition, UC Irvine Medical Center was the first hospital in Orange County to receive Magnet designation from the American Nurses Credentialing Center.
More » Oct. 24, 2007 – 10:30 a.m. Neumark to study effects of women's health insurance  UC Irvine economics professor David Neumark recently was awarded part of a $2.3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study the effects of employee-contingent health insurance plans on women with breast cancer. The study will compare the health of women who have employee-contingent health insurance and women with spouse-sponsored health plans. Early evidence suggests that women with employee-contingent health insurance were less likely to take time off work to address health related issues, suggesting these women may be foregoing needed medical treatment. Neumark was awarded a $350,000 subcontract of the grant and will work with Cathy Bradley of Virginia Commonwealth University.
More » Oct. 18, 2007 – 9:14 a.m. Koenig elected to board of international disaster medicine group Dr. Kristi Koenig, UC Irvine professor of clinical emergency medicine and director of public health preparedness, has been elected to the board of directors for World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine, an international group dedicated to public health preparedness around the world. WADEM, as it is called, is currently working with the World Health Organization to offer itself as the scientific advisory arm in assisting with the development of collaborative relationships between organizations working in disasters and emergencies. Koenig is recognized internationally for her expertise on disaster response and is playing a key role in public health preparedness around the globe.
More » Oct. 18, 2007 – 8:52 a.m. Vaca study to focus on injury risk and young Latino men Dr. Federico Vaca, UC Irvine associate professor of clinical emergency medicine and director of the Center for Trauma and Injury Prevention Research, has received a five-year, $624,000 research training grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. He plans to study adolescent development and behaviors that influence the risk of motor vehicle crash injury in young Latino men. Vaca will undertake both quantitative and qualitative studies to better understand the confluence of youth and Latino culture and their influence on the risk of motor vehicle crash-related injury and death. Previous research has found the young Latino male population to be the exception to the “Latino Epidemiological Paradox.” He will use findings from his studies to ultimately develop a clinical intervention program. Vaca is only one of less than 20 emergency physician researchers in the country to receive this type of federal training grant.
More » Oct. 17, 2007 – 8:51 a.m. Zhou helps identify reproductive development pathway  Qun-Yong Zhou, UC Irvine professor of pharmacology, has helped lead a study in which a new molecular pathway required for normal development of the reproductive, olfactory and circadian systems was identified. In the study, conducted with Massachusetts General Hospital clinical researchers and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes defects in a gene called prokineticin 2 in human siblings with two different forms of infertility. The defects link to a rate condition called hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, in which puberty does not take place naturally. Zhou’s group contributed to the understanding of the neurobiological functions of prokineticin and its receptors; researchers hope this finding may lead to clinical efforts for developmental disorders.
More » Oct. 17, 2007 – 8:30 a.m. Biophysics project receives about $1.5 million from NIH  UC Irvine professors Clare Yu and her collaborator, Steven Gross, have received about $1.5 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health to study transportation networks within living cells. The breakdown of these systems has been associated with types of blindness, kidney disease, birth defects and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. This is the first substantial award from NIH to the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and it is a good example of interdisciplinary research at UCI. Yu (pictured) is a professor of physics and astronomy, and Gross is an associate professor of developmental and cell biology with a joint appointment in physics.
More » Oct. 15, 2007 – 3:43 p.m. Chair of surgery honored with distinguished service award  Dr. David B. Hoyt, the John E. Connolly M.D. Professor and Chair of Surgery, has been awarded with the American College of Surgeons’ highest honor, the 2007 Distinguished Service Award. Hoyt was recognized for his service with the College and for his significant contributions to the field of trauma surgery. The College cited Hoyt as an architect and sustaining force of the San Diego Trauma System and for his natural leadership, integrity, vision and service as a role model to surgeons everywhere. Hoyt came to UC Irvine last year from UC San Diego. He oversees all surgical services and training provided through the Department of Surgery, which encompasses 10 surgical divisions and the highly acclaimed UC Irvine Regional Burn Center and Beckman Laser Institute. He was presented with the award Oct. 11 at the College’s Annual Meeting of Fellows in New Orleans.
More » Oct. 15, 2007 – 10:40 a.m. Orthopaedic surgery chair wins top award for hand surgery  Dr. Ranjan Gupta, professor and chair of orthopaedic surgery in the UC Irvine School of Medicine, has won the Sterling Bunnell Award from the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. The award is the most prestigious in the field and is given to a young American clinician who has made significant advances in the field of hand surgery. With the award, Gupta plans to travel to Europe and Asia to give lectures, participate in conferences and learn and share new surgical techniques. Gupta, 38, is also active in research and is currently working with a $1.7 million research grant from the National Institutes of Health to help find a cure for carpal tunnel syndrome and other chronic nerve-compression injuries.
More » Oct. 12, 2007 – 2:57 p.m. UCI professors appointed to California Scientific Guidance Panel  Drs. Dwight Culver and Ulrike Luderer in the UC Irvine School of Medicine have been appointed to the Scientific Guidance Panel by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Panel member provide scientific guidance to the California Biomonitoring Planning Project, which brings together the state’s academic, community and government resources to monitor and analyze the chemicals in air, water and food that can affect the health of all Californians. Culver (pictured), clinical professor of epidemiology, previously held several positions at UC Irvine, including co-director of the Cancer Surveillance Program and director of the residency training program in occupational medicine. Luderer, associate professor of occupational and environmental medicine, belongs to the Santa Ana Mountains Task Force and Society of Toxicology and is a past member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board’s Environmental Health Committee.
More » Oct. 11, 2007 – 1:22 p.m. Autism may be associated with assisted reproductive technology  Children conceived through the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) have a significantly higher risk of autism, a UC Irvine child neurologist has observed. In reviewing the charts of more than 1,200 children treated at the For OC Kids Neurodevelopmental Center in Orange, Dr. Pauline A. Filipek found that 10 percent of the clinic’s autism patients were conceived using ART, which is eight times higher than the 1.2 percent of all births nationwide that are the result of ART. This is the first known report of an association between autism and ART, Filipek said, and the reasons why ART children have higher autism rates are unknown. Further studies on ART-conceived children with autism will be needed, she added. Filipek will present this data at the 36th annual meeting of the Child Neurology Society in Quebec, Canada, Oct. 11. As director of the OC Kids clinic, Filipek is recognized as one of the nation’s leading autism researchers, and her findings stressing early diagnosis are improving clinical opportunities for children worldwide.
More » Oct. 11, 2007 – 10:08 a.m. Community health fair makes healthy lifestyles fun  UC Irvine’s Institute for Clinical Translational Science hosted a community health and education fair Oct. 6 at Washington Elementary School in Santa Ana, where more than 700 people came for health screenings and to learn about good health practices. More than 40 community agencies helped sponsor activities and provided diabetes, cholesterol, dental, hearing, vision and osteoporosis screenings, along with physicals, immunization and information promoting health and well-being. UCI medical students and the women’s soccer team organized a soccer game to encourage children to get active, and Peter the Anteater joined in the fun, which included face-painting, giveaways and live music. The institute plans to make the community health fair an annual event.
More » Oct. 10, 2007 – 2:24 p.m. Goodwin joins UCI as chair of radiological science  Dr. Scott Goodwin has joined the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine as a professor and chair of the Department of Radiological Sciences. Goodwin comes from UCLA, where he was a professor of radiology. He also serves as chair of radiology and chief of imaging service for the Department of Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System in Westwood. In his research, Goodwin helped develop a novel technique to treat fibroid tumors, which is saving tens of thousands of women from having hysterectomies. This is Goodwin’s second tour at UCI; he was an assistant professor of radiological sciences in 1991-92. He replaces the retiring Dr. Fong Tsai.
More » Oct. 8, 2007 – 11:05 a.m. LaFerla appointed to Alzheimer's Association board of directors  Frank LaFerla, professor of neurobiology and behavior at UC Irvine, has been appointed to the Alzheimer's Association Orange County Chapter board of directors. LaFerla, co-director of the Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia and a fellow of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, is a world leader in the field of Alzheimer's disease research.
More » Oct. 4, 2007 – 12:54 p.m. $26 million award expands UCI's role in child health study  UC Irvine has received $25.9 million from the National Institutes of Health to expand the National Children’s Study – a long-term study assessing environmental and genetic factors on child health – to San Diego and San Bernardino counties. This award, the second largest in UCI's history, adds to the initial $14.6 million received by the university in 2005 to establish the Orange County Vanguard Center of the NCS. The additional funding will establish the Southern California Study Center, in which UCI researchers will work with scientists from the UC San Diego, San Diego State University, Loma Linda University and the California State University, San Bernardino on this landmark effort, which is led by Jim Swanson (pictured), a UCI professor of pediatrics and director of the Child Development Center.
More » Sept. 27, 2007 – 8:46 a.m. Connolly named regent of National Library of Medicine  Dr. John E. Connolly, professor of surgery in the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, has been appointed to the board of regents of the National Library of Medicine. Connolly will serve as one of 10 regents to oversee the activities of the world’s largest library of health sciences, which is in Bethesda, Md., and is part of the National Institutes of Health. “The National Library of Medicine is the world’s greatest resource for biomedical and health care research, and I am proud to have the opportunity to serve as one of its regents,” Connolly said. His term is for four years.
More » Sept. 25, 2007 – 9:25 a.m. Breath analysis could warn diabetics of high blood sugar  A study led by Dr. Pietro Galassetti, a diabetes researcher with the General Clinical Research Center, found that breath-analysis testing may prove to be an effective, non-invasive method for monitoring blood sugar levels in diabetes. By using a chemical analysis method developed for air-pollution testing, UC Irvine chemists and pediatricians found that children with type-1 diabetes exhale significantly higher concentrations of methyl nitrates when they are hyperglycemic. The study heralds the potential of a breath device that can warn diabetics of high blood sugar levels and of the need for insulin. Study results appear this week in the early online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More » Sept. 24, 2007 – 11:27 a.m. Studies find cell defects related to multiple sclerosis  In immunology studies related to multiple sclerosis, Dr. Michael Demetriou and his UC Irvine research colleagues found that defects on cell-surface sugars may promote the short-term inflammation and long-term neurodegeneration that occurs in the central nervous system of multiple sclerosis patients. The findings, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, also suggest a dietary supplement similar to glucosamine may be useful as an oral therapy to correct these defects and to treat both the short-term and the long-term symptoms of the disease. Pictured: Demetriou (center), assistant professor of neurology, and microbiology and molecular genetics, with Ani Grigorian (left) and Sung-Uk Lee (right).
More » Sept. 11, 2007 – 8:58 a.m. Brain network related to intelligence identified  In a review of 37 imaging studies related to intelligence, UC Irvine’s Richard Haier and Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico have uncovered evidence of a distinct neurobiology of human intelligence. This Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory identifies a network related to intelligence, one primarily involving areas in the frontal and the parietal lobes. The data suggest that some of the brain areas related to intelligence are the same areas related to attention and memory and to more complex functions like language. Haier and Jung say this possible integration of cognitive functions suggests that intelligence levels might be based on how efficient the frontal-parietal networks process information. Their report includes peer commentary from 19 researchers and appears online in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
More » Sept. 6, 2007 – 1:24 p.m. Meyskens named to Southwest Oncology Group post Dr. Frank L. Meyskens, the Daniel G. Aldrich Jr. Endowed Chair and director of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at UC Irvine, was appointed by the Southwest Oncology Group as its new associate chair of cancer control and prevention. Meyskens will head all cancer control and prevention efforts for the group, which is a major National Cancer Institute-sponsored clinical trials network. Last year, Meyskens received the American Society of Preventive Oncology’s Distinguished Achievement Award for his significant research contributions in the areas of cancer prevention and treatment over the past 30 years. The Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is one of only 37 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive centers in the nation and the only one in Orange County.
More » Sept. 6, 2007 – 8:25 a.m. UCI scientists use mathematics to study cancer  A team of UC Irvine mathematicians has developed a computer model that produces 3-D simulations of a growing brain cancer. The mathematical model, described in a recently published study in the journal NeuroImage, takes into account several factors such as the cellular environment, characteristics of the tumor cells, and the response of the host brain tissue. The model could potentially be used for disease diagnosis or prognosis, hypothesis testing, and to guide surgery and therapy. Scientists now are working on inputting a more complete set of biological data into the model from tumors growing inside the body, which better represents the condition in patients. Mathematics Professor John Lowengrub led the UCI team, which included Hermann Frieboes, Steven Wise, X. Zheng and Paul Macklin. The research was conducted in collaboration with scientists led by Professor Vittorio Cristini at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston. Cristini used to be a faculty member in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UCI.
More » Sept. 4, 2007 – 10:15 a.m. Mukamel leads study on independent living for baby boom retirees As the baby boomer generation faces retirement, there is heightened interest in the best ways to care for older adults and prolong their abilities to live independently. A new study looks at seniors’ abilities to perform essential daily functions after entering the PACE program, a large-scale managed-care initiative with 15,000 current U.S. participants. Dana Mukamel, lead study author and senior fellow at the Center for Health Policy Research at UC Irvine, says PACE's objective is to enable individuals to live independently in the community with a high quality of life. Study data showed that at three months 61 percent of enrollees reported no decline in functional skills, and by 12 months 43.3 percent still reported no decline. The average age of participants is 80. Study authors considered the slower rate of decline an important factor in the ability to prolong independent living. The study appears in the latest issue of The Milbank Quarterly.
More » Aug. 27, 2007 – 11:23 a.m. State grant to support alcohol prevention program for drivers Dr. Federico Vaca and the UC Irvine School of Medicine’s Center for Trauma and Injury Prevention Research were recently awarded a $489,000 grant by the California Office of Traffic Safety to continue their alcohol-impaired driving prevention program. The award will allow for significant expansion of important ongoing computerized alcohol screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment activities at the UC Irvine Medical Center Emergency Department and Trauma Center. The CTIPR research team also will implement their computerized alcohol screening and intervention tool in the college healthcare setting. Vaca, CTIPR director and associate professor of clinical emergency medicine, is a leading expert on traffic safety issues.
More » Aug. 23, 2007 – 3:49 p.m. UCI memory research featured in four-part Los Angeles Times series Gary Lynch, a UC Irvine neurobiologist, and his laboratory were recently the subject of a mammoth four-part series in the Los Angeles Times looking into Lynch’s epic effort to understand how memories form in the brain. The series appeared Aug. 19-22. Over the past two years, reporter Terry McDermott spent time with the Lynch team as they worked to make a scientific breakthrough. The effort paid off – Lynch and his colleagues have published a series of breakthrough papers this year, showing the first images of the physical changes in brain cells thought to underlie memory, a discovery that is already uncovering clues about memory loss linked to cognitive disorders. Ultimately, Lynch wants to use this information to map human memory.
More » Aug. 20, 2007 – 9:45 a.m. Brain cells work differently than previously thought  Scientists know that information travels between brain cells along hairlike extensions called axons. For the first time, researchers have found that axons don’t just transmit information -- they can turn the signal up or down with the right stimulation. This finding may help scientists develop treatments for psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia, in which it is thought that different parts of the brain do not communicate correctly with each other. The study, headed by UC Irvine neuroscientist Raju Metherate, appeared online Sunday, Aug. 19, in Nature Neuroscience.
More » Aug. 20, 2007 – 9:36 a.m. Silver to receive service award from psychological association  UC Irvine psychologist Roxane Cohen Silver will receive the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Service at the group's leadership conference in October. The honor, bestowed to one individual annually, was initiated by the APA Board of Scientific Affairs to recognize outstanding service to psychological science. Silver is a national expert in the field of stress and coping and has spearheaded the longest-running national study of psychological responses to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She serves on a federal advisory committee created by the Homeland Security and State departments that is developing travel policies for people visiting the United States. The APA cited her "dedicated pursuit ... of bringing the value of psychological science to the government's attention and the public eye" and her role in "mentoring students and faculty." News Contact Related topics: Health & Medicine, Science & Technology, University News, Psychology, Silver Aug. 9, 2007 – 3:59 p.m. UC Irvine researchers find genetic link to panic disorder  A UC Irvine research team led by Rainer Reinscheid, associate professor of pharmacology and the program in pharmaceutical sciences, has found that a genetic variant of the Neuropeptide S (NPS) receptor is associated with panic disorder in male patients. In addition, the researchers confirmed that the NPS gene is found in a region on human chromosome 7 that had been previously associated with panic disorder in two independent studies. Reinscheid was the first to describe and name NPS in 2004, finding that this brain protein is involved in the regulation of sleep and wakefulness, and can modulate anxiety behavior. Studies on how the NPS system works can lead to development of pharmaceutical compounds that can potentially treat mental illnesses. The study appears online in the journal Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry.
More » Aug. 6, 2007 – 11:46 a.m. Hoda Anton-Culver named chair of new epidemiology department  A UC Irvine researcher who oversees one of the nation’s largest cancer genetics studies has been named founding chair of the new Department of Epidemiology. Hoda Anton-Culver, epidemiology professor and Genetic Epidemiology Research Institute director, will lead the 26th and newest department in the School of Medicine. Previously, epidemiology was a division in the Department of Medicine. Its designation to departmental status allows for continued growth in its four research areas – genetic epidemiology, clinical epidemiology, environmental epidemiology and biostatistics – and the development of a Ph.D. program for epidemiology in the School of Medicine. Currently, there are 19 faculty members affiliated with the department.
More » Aug. 6, 2007 – 9:19 a.m. New medical students initiated in White Coat Ceremony  On Sunday, Aug. 5, the incoming UC Irvine School of Medicine Class of 2011 participated in a solemn rite of passage shared by previous generations of physicians. Called the White Coat Ceremony, the event underscores the importance of compassion in the doctor-patient relationship. Before family and friends, the 106 new medical students were cloaked in their first white physician’s coats, symbolizing that the desire to practice compassion lies at the heart of their chosen profession. Following the keynote address by Dr. Alberto Manetta, professor emeritus and senior consultant to the vice chancellor for health affairs, the students were called individually to the stage to receive their coats. They then recited the Oath for Doctors of Medicine, written by the UC Irvine College of Medicine Class of 1977 and used in place of the ancient Hippocratic Oath.
More » Aug. 1, 2007 – 2:26 p.m. Discovery of active genes reveals new clues on ALS Dr. Tahseen Mozaffar, a neurologist and director of the MDA ALS and Neuromuscular Diseases Center at the UC Irvine Medical Center, is part of a national group of scientists who have identified the active genes in sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a discovery that provides expanded opportunities for developing therapies to treat this chronic, incurable disease. A comprehensive scan of the human genome has identified more than 50 genetic abnormalities in people with sporadic ALS, the most prevalent form of the disease. Study results appear online in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study was supported by Augie’s Quest, a fast-track ALS research program, in conjunction with Muscular Dystrophy’s ALS Division. Fitness pioneer Augie Nieto started Augie’s Quest after being diagnosed with ALS in March 2005. He receives treatment at UC Irvine. Last year, Augie’s Quest donated $500,000 to UC Irvine’s MDA ALS and Neuromuscular Diseases Center.
More » Aug. 1, 2007 – 8:38 a.m. UCI awarded $14.5 million to support systems biology center  UC Irvine has been awarded $14.5 million over five years to support the Center for Complex Biological Systems in which biologists, mathematicians, physicists, engineers and computer scientists collaborate to study why the human body and other organisms work the way they do. A multidisciplinary team of 20 scientists will attempt to answer questions such as: Why do between 4 and 8 percent of all babies born have birth defects? When a wound heals, how does the body produce just the right number of cells to repair it? Why do most drugs have side effects? The UCI center, led by Arthur Lander (pictured), is being funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, one of the National Institutes of Health. It will be the only one of its kind in California.
More » Aug. 1, 2007 – 8:33 a.m. Study helps explain how HIV becomes AIDS  A new UC Irvine study sheds light on how HIV develops into AIDS and suggests a possible way to block the deadly transformation. UCI biologist Dominik Wodarz has shown for the first time that the development of AIDS might require HIV to evolve within a patient into a state where it spreads less efficiently from cell to cell. This counters the current belief that AIDS develops when the virus evolves over time to spread more efficiently within a patient, ultimately leading to the collapse of the immune system. The study also finds that multiple HIV particles must team up to infect individual cells, called co-infection, in order for deadly strains to emerge and to turn the infection into AIDS. If just one virus particle infects a cell, the deadliest strains may not be able to evolve, stopping HIV from progressing to AIDS. By keeping more than one HIV particle from infecting a cell, scientists might be able to ward off AIDS, the study suggests. This research was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
More » July 31, 2007 – 2:35 p.m. Krassner to address Women’s Business Council Philippines  Liza Krassner, unit administrator and principal administrative analyst for the UC Irvine Developmental Biology Center, will be a keynote speaker at the Women’s Business Council Philippines’ 10th anniversary conference Nov. 22 and 23 at the Dusit Hotel Nikko in Makati, Manila. The conference theme is “The Global Woman: Mastering Herself and the World.” WBCP is a private business association and policy advocacy group which focuses on the concerns of Filipino businesswomen, such as access to finance and credit, marketing, continuing education and training. Krassner has been working on a graduate school project for her master’s in public administration at Cal State University Long Beach aimed at helping build UCI's vision of a School of Public Health in the Health Sciences. Her research focuses on global health and infectious diseases. At the conference, she will speak on physical wellbeing and family life and meet Hon. Mona Dumlao-Valisno, special adviser to the president of the Philippines, to discuss her project.
More » July 27, 2007 – 9:29 a.m. UCI’s Health Education Center receives record grant for HIV/AIDS programs  UC Irvine’s Health Education Center was recently awarded a $42,000 grant from the AIDS Services Foundation of Orange County for its overwhelming support of OC AIDS Walk 2007, which took place May 12 at Angel Stadium of Anaheim. The grant was a record amount for the center. UCI supporters volunteered more than 2,200 hours and raised over $13,000 in donations. “UCI Health Education is greatly appreciative of this support for our sexual health programs, and we look forward to using these funds to support student projects related to AIDS/HIV education,” said center director Ellen Reibling (pictured). For over a decade, the Health Education Center has been an integral part of the planning and preparation for OC AIDS Walk, serving on advisory committees and providing staff support for the annual event.
More » July 24, 2007 – 2:08 p.m. UCI researchers unveil 'face' of a new memory  A century-old dream of neuroscientists to visualize a memory has been fulfilled, as UC Irvine researchers, using newly developing microscopic techniques, have captured first-time images of the changes in brain cell connections following a common form of learning. The study shows that synaptic connections in a region of rats’ brains critical to learning change shape when the rodents learn to navigate a new, complex environment. In turn, when drugs are administered that block these changes, the rats don’t learn, confirming the essential role the shape change plays in the production of stable memory. “This is the first time anyone has seen the physical substrate, the ‘face,’ of newly encoded memory,” said study leader Gary Lynch. professor of psychiatry and human behavior (pictured). “We have cleared a hurdle that once seemed insurmountable.”
More » July 24, 2007 – 9:40 a.m. Anger, depression much higher among jailed teen girls than boys, study finds  Despite years working with troubled teens, psychologist Elizabeth Cauffman was surprised by the results of her new survey of kids in juvenile detention centers. Detained girls face very different psychological issues than average teen girls and, in some ways, more severe problems than incarcerated boys. Although girls generally internalize problems, Cauffman found that girls in detention are twice as likely as boys to externalize problems with aggression or anger, and just as likely as boys to report worrisome levels of alcohol or drug use. The study, which appears in the July issue of Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, will help state officials and staff members at youth correctional facilities better understand the mental health of troubled teens in their care.
More » News Contact Related topics: Health & Medicine, Society & Politics, Criminology, Prison, Psychology, Social Ecology July 23, 2007 – 4:25 p.m. Child development researchers find ADHD drugs stunt growth UC Irvine pediatricians, led by Child Development Center director Jim Swanson (pictured), have found that after three years children who take the popular attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug, Ritalin, are about an inch shorter and smaller by 4.4 pounds than children who don’t take the drug. In a second study, the researchers found that children with ADHD differed in their response to medications. The UCI research was part of four studies published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, which evaluated the outcomes of children who participated in a nationwide study of ADHD. Swanson is also primary investigator of a $14.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to establish a vanguard site for the National Children’s Study in Orange County.
More » July 20, 2007 – 11:45 a.m. Keirstead lab awarded grant for stem cell research safety  The Dhont Family Foundation, represented by Executive Director Andre G. Dhont (pictured), has given $100,000 to UC Irvine neurobiologist Hans Keirstead for the purpose of enhancing safety in stem cell research. In addition to the grant, which was facilitated by Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy, the Dhont Family Foundation has offered a challenge to the Keirstead lab: If it can raise an additional $100,000 for safety research, the foundation will match the funds. FSMA also will work with Keirstead to meet the challenge.
More » July 19, 2007 – 11:05 a.m. Cognitive scientist finds surprising number of brain's neurons help eyes  A person searching for a ripe tomato at the grocery store is more likely to notice apples, strawberries and other red fruits as well, according to a new UC Irvine study that used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure changes in blood flow in the brain. Cognitive scientist John Serences also discovered that more neurons are called into action to help the eyes find a particular object than has previously been documented. The findings, published in the July 18 online edition of the journal Neuron, may help scientists better understand Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, while also explaining how healthy people’s brains create awareness of their surroundings.
More » News Contact Related topics: Health & Medicine, Science & Technology, Brain, Cognitive Science, Eye, Social Sciences, Vision July 18, 2007 – 9:31 a.m. UCI vector biologist named Distinguished Professor  Vector biologist Anthony A. James has been named Distinguished Professor in recognition of his research into infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever through molecular genetic studies of mosquitoes. In 2006, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and in 2005 he received a $19.7 million grant from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health to lead an international effort to develop new methods to control the transmission of dengue fever. James is a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics in the UC Irvine School of Medicine, and in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry in the School of Biological Sciences.
More » July 16, 2007 – 4:57 p.m. Medical students expand efforts to Chiapas  Sixteen UC Irvine medical students, including those involved in the innovative PRIME-LC, will be spending some of their summer vacation in Chiapas, the most southern, rural, economically disadvantaged state of Mexico. Their “Miniconference in the Highlands” this month will feature discussion on topics ranging from poverty and structural violence to the sociopolitical origins of health care outcomes. The students also will be involved with a health promoter project and pulmonology field research to measure the levels of carbon monoxide and nitric oxide before and after installation of wood-burning stoves where open fires used to be. Last year, 10 PRIME-LC students initiated the first Chiapas conference (pictured), chronicled by John Rose Jr. in a Web travelogue. The UCI crew raised $35,000 in grants and private funds to support this year’s Chiapas effort, which they hope is part of a continued investment in international study and research programs to improve the quality of life for all people, regardless of race, economics and politics.
More » July 10, 2007 – 1:04 p.m. Anonymous donor gives $5 million to UC Irvine's Department of Pediatrics  Two happy, healthy 4-year-old twins -- Grant and Alexa Agamalian -- convinced an anonymous Los Angeles donor to give $5 million to the Department of Pediatrics at UC Irvine. The donor is a friend of Dana and John Agamalian, who live with their children (pictured) in Newport Beach. The Agamalians credit doctors and nurses at UC Irvine Medical Center's neonatal intensive care unit with saving the lives of the twins, born prematurely, and their friend responded with the donation. "Gifts of such significance allow us to turn our vision into reality and make advances in health care that would not otherwise be possible," said Dr. David N. Bailey, vice chancellor for health affairs at UCI.
More » July 2, 2007 – 9:25 a.m. Mozaffar elected to American Neurological Association  Dr. Tahseen Mozaffar, an associate professor of clinical medicine at UC Irvine, has been elected to the American Neurological Association for his substantial academic contribution to the field of neurology and his future promise. ANA is a 132-year-old professional organization and considered to be the most prestigious society in neurology. Mozaffar is a leading expert on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and director of the UC Irvine MDA ALS and Neuromuscular Center. Along with winning the Faculty Teaching Award in the Department of Neurology four times, he received the National Teaching Recognition award from the American Academy of Neurology in 2003. He is current president of the Orange County Neurological Society and sits on numerous committees of professional associations and medical research foundations.
More » June 26, 2007 – 10:22 a.m. Putnam receives CAREER award  Andrew Putnam, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and chemical engineering and materials science at UC Irvine, has received a $400,000 Faculty Early Career Development award from the National Science Foundation. Putnam was selected for his research with tissue engineering and capillary bed growth. His laboratory conducts research in the broad area of cell and tissue engineering.
More » June 26, 2007 – 10:21 a.m. Carew elected president of Society for Neuroscience  Tom Carew, Bren Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior, has been elected president of the Society for Neuroscience. The society, with more than 36,500 members, is the world's largest organization of basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system. Carew is chair of the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior in the School of Biological Sciences at UC Irvine. He studies the neuronal basis of memory.
More » June 25, 2007 – 8:40 a.m. Bariatric surgery program earns highest accreditation from ACS  The Bariatric Surgery Program at UC Irvine has been accredited as a Level 1a Bariatric Center by the American College of Surgeons Bariatric Surgery Center Network. The accreditation demonstrates that UCI has the resources to successfully further surgical education and provide high-quality care to patients with greater opportunities for safe and effective outcomes. The Bariatric Surgery Program, led by Board-certified gastrointestinal surgeons, Drs. Ninh T. Nguyen and H. Joseph Naim, offers the most advanced minimally invasive laparoscopic techniques and features a multidisciplinary team of experts, including nurses, psychologists, dieticians, patient coordinators and anesthesiologists. Pictured here is grateful patient Mary Jane Roberts, who dropped from 250 to 120 pounds after her surgery at UC Irvine Medical Center. The surgery enabled Roberts to alleviate harmful obesity-related conditions such as high blood pressure and acid reflux.
More » June 25, 2007 – 8:35 a.m. PRIME-LC turns 3 with incoming class of 12  The Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC) celebrated its third birthday last Friday with a welcoming reception for an incoming class of 12, raising overall enrollment to 44 medical students. The groundbreaking program offers a unique curriculum designed to train future doctors who can provide health care to underserved Spanish-speaking communities in California. Hailed as a national model for culturally sensitive medical education, PRIME-LC has been so successful that the University of California is starting other PRIME programs at its other medical schools to address other pressing health care needs. Over the weekend, the new PRIME class of 12 will go to Cuernavaca, Mexico, for coursework on Latin American culture and medical Spanish.
More » June 21, 2007 – 4:44 p.m. Mathematics reveals genetic pattern of tumor growth  Using mathematical theory, UC Irvine scientists have shed light on one of cancer’s most troubling puzzles – how cancer cells can alter their own genetic makeup to accelerate tumor growth. The discovery, focusing on genetic instability, shows for the first time why this change occurs, providing insight into how cancerous tumors thrive and a potential foundation for future cancer treatments. The study by mathematicians Natalia Komarova (pictured), Alexander Sadovsky and Frederic Wan was published this week in the Royal Society journal Interface.
More » June 19, 2007 – 11:58 a.m. Olshansky named founding director of nursing program  Ellen Olshansky has been named founding director of UC Irvine’s new program in nursing science in the College of Health Sciences. Olshansky comes here from the University of Pittsburgh, where she was professor and chair of health and community systems in the School of Nursing. She has more than 30 years experience in nursing as an administrator, researcher and practitioner, and she is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. Established in 2005, the program in nursing science is a part of the UC Irvine College of Health Sciences. Students were first accepted in the 2006-07 academic year, and more than 100 students are currently enrolled in the undergraduate program.
More » June 14, 2007 – 8:52 a.m. Cohn’s book called 'milestone in bioethics'  UC Irvine medical ethicist Felicia Cohn is the co-editor of a new book, The Ethics of Bioethics: Mapping the Moral Landscape, which was published this month by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Cohn is the director of medical ethics in the School of Medicine and one of the leading voices on ethical issues related to the practice of medicine. The book, which covers topics ranging from global health inequalities to “the tyranny of expertise,” is receiving positive reviews, with one claiming it to be “a milestone in the field of bioethics.” For more information on the book, see www.press.jhu.edu.
More » June 13, 2007 – 11:12 a.m. Crumley elected to top laryngology post  Dr. Roger L. Crumley, professor of otolaryngology-head & neck surgery at the UC Irvine School of Medicine, has been named president-elect of the American Laryngological Association at its annual meeting in San Diego. The association is the country’s oldest surgical sub-specialty society. Members have focused interest and expertise in speech, vocal cord and other laryngological disorders. Crumley will become president of the organization in May 2008. He specializes in facial, plastic and reconstructive surgery in addition to laryngology, and served as the president of the American Academy of Facial Plastic Surgery in the 1990s. He recently stepped down as chair of the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery after leading it for nearly 20 years.
More » June 6, 2007 – 9:35 a.m. Cancer drug enhances long-term memory  A drug used to treat cancer has been shown to enhance long-term memory and strengthen neural connections in the brain, according to a new study by UC Irvine scientists. In the study with mice, Marcelo Wood and colleagues found that histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors – currently used in clinical trials to attack cancerous tumors – relaxes the protein structure that organizes and compacts genomic DNA, allowing for easier activation of genes involved in memory storage. This finding suggests that HDAC inhibitors could boost memory in humans and – because of the way they work – be therapeutic for people with Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases and Rubenstein-Taybi syndrome. This research was published Wednesday, June 6, in the Journal of Neuroscience.
More » June 6, 2007 – 9:33 a.m. UC Irvine awarded $3.9 million to enhance stem cell research  UC Irvine has been awarded $3.9 million to upgrade its core embryonic stem cell research laboratory and expand a program to train young scientists on research techniques involving human embryonic stem cells. This grant is part of more than $50 million in Shared Research Laboratory funding awarded to 17 institutions Tuesday, June 5, by the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, the governing board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. UCI and its stem cell research scientists have been awarded a total of $17.5 million from CIRM, ranking UCI fourth among 23 institutions for total CIRM funding. The UCI Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center is led by Peter Donovan (pictured) and Hans Keirstead.
More » June 5, 2007 – 3:47 p.m. PRIME-LC student named AMA Minority Scholars Award winner  Elysia Alvarez, a first-year medical student at UC Irvine, has received a 2007 Minority Scholars Award from the American Medical Association Foundation. As one of only 11 recipients, she will be given a $10,000 scholarship in recognition of her excellence as a medical student and outstanding promise for a future career. Alvarez is enrolled in the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community, a unique program intended to prepare clinical leaders focused on improving health care for California’s Latino population, and has volunteered at Long Beach Miller Children’s hospital and the School of Medicine’s student-run clinic, Clinica Carino.
More » June 5, 2007 – 2:06 p.m. UC Irvine pediatricians put the focus on children and exercise  Dr. Dan Cooper and The Pediatric Exercise Research Center at UC Irvine have teamed up with The Orange County Register to focus on 'Kids at Play.' The photo contest is open to amateur photographers in two categories (adults and youths 14 and younger). It is meant to highlight individual and team efforts of kids on the move, from their first steps to competitive sports. The special efforts of children with health challenges or disabilities also are welcomed. Photos must be in jpeg format and at least 1 mg in size. Deadline for submission is Sept. 3. Prizes, including sports camp scholarships and athletic shoes, will be awarded and winning photos will run in The Register. For instructions on submitting your photo, click
More » June 4, 2007 – 1:36 p.m. Lin named to national alternative medicine council  Shin Lin has been named to the National Advisory Council for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. This council advises leadership at the National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, the federal government's lead agency for scientific research in these fields. The center is part of the National Institutes of Health. Lin is director of the International Alliance on Mind/Body Signaling & Energy Research, and he is a professor in the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine at UCI.
More » June 4, 2007 – 9:39 a.m. UC Irvine urologists develop minimally invasive kidney surgery technique  UC Irvine urologists have successfully performed in the laboratory the first minimally invasive kidney surgery technique using a specially designed surgical device that allows for the use of multiple instruments without leaving a visible scar. Drs. Ralph Clayman (pictured), professor and chair of urology and fellow Geoffrey Box led the effort in developing this unique method of going through two natural orifices to perform a nephrectomy – a procedure in which the kidney is removed. They presented their results in a paper – which was awarded first prize from over 100 submissions – at the annual Engineering and Urology Society section of the American Urology Association meeting in Anaheim in May. UC Irvine urologists are leaders in developing new minimally invasive surgical techniques, and Clayman and Box believe this breakthrough could eventually lead to possibly less invasive kidney procedures with faster recovery times.
More » May 31, 2007 – 4:44 p.m. Boxer visits UCI stem cell research center  U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer visited UC Irvine's Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center Thursday, May 31. Boxer toured the center's core laboratory, then briefed the media on the status of federal stem cell legislation. Joining Boxer at the event were Chancellor Michael V. Drake, Vice Chancellor for Research Susan V. Bryant, Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs David N. Bailey, and stem cell center co-directors Peter Donovan and Hans Keirstead.
More » May 25, 2007 – 8:31 a.m. Harmon brings health care advisory committee to UC Irvine  The College of Health Sciences hosted State Sen. Tom Harmon (R–Huntington Beach), who convened his health care advisory committee Friday, May 25, in Irvine Hall. The committee discussed a number of statewide health care issues, including CalCARE, a health care reform program proposal set forth by the state Senate. In addition, Ellen Lewis, program administrator, nursing and allied health, provided an overview of the emerging program in nursing science, which has enrolled more than 100 students who will be helping fill the growing need for highly trained nurses in California.
More » May 22, 2007 – 8:56 a.m. Top physician scientists win School of Medicine awards  The School of Medicine has announced this year’s Athalie Clarke and Junior Physician Scientist Award recipients. Sponsored by the Research Associates – the School of Medicine’s longest-standing support group – the awards acknowledge researchers who are making a notable impact on medical science. The 2007 Athalie Clarke Achievement Award winners are Sue Piper Duckles, professor of pharmacology, and Steven Wechsler (pictured), professor of ophthalmology. The Dean’s Junior Physician Scientist Award will go to outstanding researchers, Dr. Devin K. Binder, assistant professor of neurosurgery, Dr. Bang Hoang, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery, Dr. Pietro Galassetti, assistant professor of pediatrics and Dr. Krishnansu S. Tewari, assistant clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology. An awards ceremony to honor these faculty members is scheduled June 7 at the Pacific Club in Newport Beach. Cost is $70. Info: 949-824-4313.
More » News Contact Related topics: Health & Medicine, University News, Neurosurgery, Ophthamology, Orthopedic Surgery, Pediatrics, Pharmacology May 22, 2007 – 8:40 a.m. Samueli Center adds naturopathic treatments to clinics  The Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine has added naturopathic treatments to its line of services. The center is the first one at a Southern California university to offer this type of treatment, which will be administered by Dr. Suzanne Tang at the Gottschalk Medical Plaza on campus and at the center’s off-campus location at Lindora in Irvine. Dr. Tang has had extensive training in diet and lifestyle counseling, nutrient therapy, Western and Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, homeopathy, detoxification and craniosacral therapy, all effective therapies she has used to address myriad conditions. Naturopathic services are designed to optimize treatments and therapies that leverage the body’s inherent ability to heal itself.
More » May 18, 2007 – 2:49 p.m. Trends show increase in alcohol-related crash fatalities for young women  Although young men have tended to be associated with alcohol-related crashes, young women are beginning to show an alarming increase in fatal automobile crashes related to alcohol use and a failure to use seatbelts, according to a study led by Dr. Virginia Tsai and emergency medicine physicians with the Center for Trauma & Injury Prevention Research at UC Irvine. Results showed that over a 10-year period (1995-2004) women began to “catch up” to men in risky behaviors related to alcohol use and driving. In addition, they found while seatbelt use increased for both young men and women, the increase for women was smaller.
More » News Contact Related topics: Health & Medicine, Society & Politics, Emergency Medicine, Traffic Safety, Trauma Research May 18, 2007 – 8:39 a.m. Dietary supplement blocks MS, diabetes symptoms  A dietary supplement has been found to suppress the damaging autoimmune response seen in multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes mellitus. In studies on mice, Dr. Michael Demetriou and colleagues with the UC Irvine Center for Immunology found that N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) inhibited the growth and function of cells that incorrectly direct the immune system to attack specific tissues in the body, such as brain myelin in MS and insulin-producing cells of the pancreas in diabetes. The finding shows the potential of using a dietary supplement to help treat autoimmune diseases.
More » May 18, 2007 – 8:40 a.m. Study shows first images of brain changes associated with memory  Neuroscientists at UC Irvine have developed the first images of the physical changes in brain cells thought to underlie memory, a discovery that is already uncovering clues about memory loss linked to cognitive disorders. The study, led by Christine M. Gall and Gary Lynch in the College of Health Sciences, appears in the prestigious Journal of Neuroscience. The researchers also found that this coding mechanism is defective in models of Huntington’s disease, revealing the roots of memory loss with the diseases.
More » May 14, 2007 – 11:01 a.m. UC Irvine launches effort to develop patient-specific stem cell lines UC Irvine neurobiologist Hans Keirstead and his research team launched a project Monday, May 14, to develop stem cell lines that genetically match human patients. These lines would allow scientists to better study conditions ranging from diabetes to Parkinson’s disease, and they would provide the basis for potential patient-specific stem cell treatments. Keirstead will use a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) in which a patient’s DNA is transplanted into a donated unfertilized egg cell in order to generate stem cell lines with the same genetic makeup of the patient. These lines have tremendous therapy potential because the human immune system is less likely to attack genetically identical cells.
More » May 15, 2007 – 11:03 a.m. Alkire wins top abstract award At the annual International Anesthesia Research Society meeting this spring, Dr. Michael Alkire, associate professor in residence and vice chair for research in the Department of Anesthesiology, was presented with the “Best of Meeting” abstract award. The award, which includes a plaque and $1,000, was given for Alkire’s work identifying brain sites that regulate unconsciousness and arousal during anesthesia.
More » May 14, 2007 – 9:40 a.m. Hoag donates $500,000 to Paul Merage School of Business Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian donated $500,000 to support programs at the Center for Health Care Management and Policy at UC Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business. “We are absolutely delighted that Hoag Hospital – one of the most highly-regarded health care institutions in the nation – has stepped up to partner with the Merage School to try and find solutions to pressing health care problems in America,” said Andy Policano, dean of the Merage School. “I am convinced that this additional step in the partnership between Hoag and the UCI campus will yield many benefits to the community." Hoag President and CEO, Dr. Richard Afable, said the hospital is committed to shaping the future of health care. “We look forward to working together...to initiate positive changes that will result in higher levels of quality health care for our community and beyond.” May 10, 2007 – 4:37 p.m. Three UC Irvine researchers named microbiology fellows  Francisco Ayala, Bert Semler and Rozanne Sandri-Goldin (pictured) have been chosen fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology, the highest honor in the field. Fellows are elected to the academy for distinguished scholarly achievement in microbiology. Sandri-Goldin is professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and a leading researcher on the herpes virus. Semler, a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, studies how viruses grow in human cells, and he has received the Outstanding Research Award from the School of Medicine. Ayala, University Professor and Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences, is one of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists and a National Medal of Science recipient.
More » News Contact Related topics: Health & Medicine, Science & Technology, Evolutionary Biology, Microbiology, Virus May 10, 2007 – 3:36 p.m. Duckles receives career achievement awards  Sue Piper Duckles received two career achievement awards at the recent meeting of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. Duckles, a professor of pharmacology and associate dean for faculty development in the School of Medicine, was given the 2007 Sollmann Award for Career Achievement and the 2007 Award in Excellence in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Foundation of America. Both awards commemorate Duckles’ research and teaching accomplishments, which have focused on the pharmacology of the cardiovascular system.
More » May 3, 2007 – 9:11 a.m. Center for Hearing Research awarded $2.2 million grant The UC Irvine Center for Hearing Research, led by Raju Metherate, has been awarded $2.2 million to establish a Core Center for Hearing and Communication Research. The center will contain state-of-the-art equipment for use by more than 20 scientists who study hearing and communication. This shared technology will foster collaboration, as the scientists come from nine departments and five schools at UCI. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders awarded the grant.
More » May 2, 2007 – 3:23 p.m. Walsh gets 'Closer to Truth'  The “Closer to Truth” team dropped by campus in April to interview Dr. Roger Walsh, professor of psychiatry, philosophy and anthropology, on topics ranging from the nature of consciousness to meditation and free will. “Closer to Truth” is a PBS program that brings together leading scientists, scholars and artists to debate latest discoveries and their impact on the human condition. Walsh’s own work makes him a perfect source for the show. His studies explore the nature of psychology and religion from existential, humanistic and cognitive perspectives, and he is author of Essential Spirituality: the Seven Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind. Shows featuring Walsh will air in 2008.
More » May 2, 2007 – 9:12 a.m. Antibiotics may help eradicate ticks and tick-born diseases, UC Irvine researchers find  Bacteria that may provide ticks with nutrients they can’t get from their meals of blood could be a key to controlling ticks and the diseases they carry, a new study published today in the PLoS ONE shows. UC Irvine professor Dr. Alan G. Barbour and researchers Jianmin Zhong and Algimantas Jasinskas found that certain antibiotics reduced the number of bacteria in ticks and thus retarded growth in immature ticks and reduced reproduction by females. “The significance is that control of ticks as vectors of disease and as pests for humans, pets and agricultural animals might be achieved by targeting inborn bacteria that the ticks depend on for achieving full growth and reproduction,” Barbour said.
More » May 2, 2007 – 9:11 a.m. UC Irvine researchers discover compound to treat cognitive disorders UC Irvine researchers have identified a new class of compounds that could be used for drugs to treat cognitive disorders that accompany schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease and ADHD, according to an article published today in the online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The compounds target receptors in the brain that are activated by nicotine. They impart the beneficial effects of nicotine – specifically enhanced cognition – without the health threats associated with smoking. "We’d like to see this lead to a drug that would address specifically the cognitive deficits found in schizophrenia,” said Kelvin W. Gee, professor in the Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine at UC Irvine.
More » April 30, 2007 – 11:38 a.m. Biological Chemistry department throws birthday bash The Department of Biological Chemistry celebrated the 80th birthday of Masayasu Nomura, the Grace Bell Professor of Biological Chemistry, with a symposium titled “Ribosomes: From Structure to Gene Expression and Beyond” April 19-20 at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies. Over his career, Nomura has been one of the world’s leading researchers on ribosomes, which are responsible for assembling proteins that give form and function to cells. This work has advanced medicine in areas such as cancer and the effectiveness of antibiotics. The invitation-only symposium brought the world’s ribosome royalty to Irvine – colleagues, friends and former students of Nomura – including Nobel Prize recipient James Watson, Lasker Award winner Robert Roeder and more than a dozen other members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences.
More » April 30, 2007 – 11:37 a.m. Omega-3 fatty acid may help prevent Alzheimer's brain lesions Studies have shown that omega-3 fatty acids are good for your heart. Now, UCI scientists have found that one type may slow the growth of brain lesions associated with Alzheimer's disease. Genetically altered mice with diets rich in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3 fatty acid, had lower levels of proteins that lead to lesions than mice that were not given DHA supplements. This study is the first to show that DHA can slow the accumulation of tau, a protein that leads to tangles, one type of lesion. DHA is found in fish and other foods. UCI neurobiologist Frank LaFerla led this study, published April 18 in The Journal of Neuroscience.
More » April 30, 2007 – 10:41 a.m. Longhurst Gets Grant to Continue Acupuncture Work  Medicine is coming to learn that acupuncture can help treat a host of ailments, but little is known about how this ancient Chinese medical practice works to heal. Dr. John Longhurst, professor of medicine and director of the Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine, is leading the way in discovering how electroacupuncture activates the central nervous system to lower blood pressure. Longhurst recently received a five-year, $1.25 million renewal of a federal research grant to study the mechanism involved with the effective use of acupuncture as a hypertension treatment. Longhurst is a leader in using Western scientific rigor to understand the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine, and this study is the only National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute-funded acupuncture research in the world. |
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