Staff in the Department of Developmental & Cell Biology got a visit from K-EARTH 101 Friday, Nov. 20, thanks to their upbeat attitude and poetic communication style. The group was chosen as the radio station's "Office of the Day," which entitled them to an on-air interview and serenaded brunch. Loyal K-EARTH listener Kathy Deal, contracts & grants analyst, entered her office in the contest with the following verse: We're a positive group of ladies,/You'll see!/If you pick us,/We'll jump up and down with glee!/We've weathered the budget cuts,/Doom and gloom,/And would love some bagels,/As well as Antonio's tunes!   More »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Dinosaurs appeared on Earth about 230 million years ago, when atmospheric oxygen levels were close to half what they are today. Scientists wonder how they survived - for 165 million years - under these varying conditions. UC Irvine biologist James Hicks is finding answers in the alligator, a modern relative of the dinosaur. In a recent study, Hicks and UCI postdoctoral researcher Tomasz Owerkowicz found that alligators incubated and raised in an environment with just 12 percent oxygen (compared to today's 21 percent) had larger hearts and lungs and improved cardiopulmonary function. "In a similar vein, the success of dinosaurs probably depended on the effectiveness of their lungs and hearts in obtaining oxygen from air and distributing it throughout the body," Hicks says. "Our results provide indirect evidence that dinosaurs must have had superior oxygen delivery systems." The study appeared in the Journal of Experimental Biology.   More »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Julie Harness studied many things – architecture, graphic design, marketing and psychology – before she found her niche in stem cell biology. “Stem cells are the basic building blocks of the body,” says the doctoral student. “So in many ways I have returned to my architectural roots.” President of the UC Irvine chapter of the Student Society for Stem Cell Research, Harness helps peers build futures in the stem cell field by connecting them with faculty mentors, potential employers and people with illnesses that stem cell therapies may one day cure.   More »

Georg Striedter, neurobiology & behavior associate professor at UC Irvine, has been awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Striedter is one of 180 scientists, scholars and artists to receive a 2009 fellowship, given to recognize stellar achievement and exceptional promise for continued accomplishment. Striedter studies brain development and evolution in birds. He holds a joint appointment in the UCI Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, and he is a fellow of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory. A full list of 2009 fellows may be viewed at www.gf.org.   More »

Kevin Thornton, UC Irvine ecology & evolutionary biology assistant professor, has been awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. He will receive a two-year, $50,000 grant to research the genetic differences in fruit flies. Thornton is one of 118 outstanding early-career scientists from 61 institutions to receive an award this year. Fellowship winners study physics, chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics and neuroscience.   More »

The state Jan. 30 tentatively approved $3.3 million over three years to enhance UC Irvine’s stem cell training program, which teaches tomorrow’s experts the techniques, ethics and clinical knowledge critical to this fast-growing field. The decision further solidifies UCI’s standing as a major hub for stem cell research. When the grant is funded, total CIRM awards to UCI will equal about $56.2 million. “We are excited to attract the best and brightest young people to UCI and Orange County,” said Peter Donovan, director of UCI’s training program and co-director of the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center. Dr. Ping Wang, medicine professor is the training program's associate director.   More »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

UC Irvine biologists Al Bennett, Brandon Gaut and Tony Long received $900,000 from the National Science Foundation to study bacteria at high temperatures, which will give them insight into evolution. By warming E. coli and studying how their offspring evolve at higher temperatures, biologists can watch an accelerated evolutionary process and learn how bacteria adapt to warming. This project will include education for K-12 teachers. Next summer, ecology & evolutionary biology lecturer Brad Hughes will give a course on evolution to teachers, using the E. coli system as a model.   More »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Adriana Briscoe, ecology and evolutionary biology associate professor, uses the beauty of butterflies and their spectacular biology to attract and mentor underrepresented minorities in science. For her efforts, she has won a $10,000 Diversity Award from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Guy Fogleman, executive director of FASEB, said Briscoe was chosen from an exceptionally strong pool of scientists. The award is funded by the Burroughs Wellcome fund. Her research has made major contributions to the understanding of butterfly vision as a model for the evolution of color vision.   More »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Adam Martiny, assistant professor of Earth system science and of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Irvine, co-authored a perspectives article titled "News About Nitrogen" in the May 9 issue of Science magazine. The article is about the importance of bacteria and bacterial diversity for understanding the global nitrogen cycle and forecasting the impact of climate change. Martiny's research interests include microbiology, environmental genomics and oceanography.   More »

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 »

Christina Zdenek, a biology undergraduate student at UC Irvine, has been selected by the Australian-American Fulbright Commission to receive a 2008 Fulbright U.S. Postgraduate Fellowship. Zdenek will go to Australia in September to conduct wildlife conservation research on the green python at Australian National University. She also has been active in local conservation biology, and is a founding executive board member of the Orange County chapter of the Society for Conservation Biology.   More »

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 »

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 »

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 »

William Reeburgh, professor of Earth system science at UC Irvine, has been elected to a fellowship in the American Academy of Microbiology. Fellows are elected annually based on their records of scientific achievement and original contributions that have advanced microbiology. Reeburgh is among 38 scientists elected to the academy this year. In all, more than 2,000 fellows represent all sub-specialties of microbiology, including basic and applied research, teaching, public health, industry and government service.   More »

The National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine have released Science, Evolution, and Creationism, a book designed to give the public a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of the current scientific understanding of evolution and its importance in the science classroom. Recent advances in science and medicine, along with an abundance of observations and experiments over the past 150 years, have reinforced evolution's role as the central organizing principle of modern biology, said the committee that wrote the book. UC Irvine biologists Francisco Ayala (pictured) and Michael Clegg served on the committee. Ayala, committee chair, also wrote an editorial on the subject that appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.   More »

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 »

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 »

Five UC Irvine students were among 26 first-place winners for outstanding scientific research presentations at the 2007 Sigma Xi Student Research Conference in Orlando, Fla., held Nov. 2-3. The students and their areas of study were: Nicholas Olivas, behavioral science; Aaron Mendez, cellular and molecular biology; Brian León, chemistry; Amanda Ruiz, ecology and evolutionary biology; and Kameelah Abdullah, physiology and immunology. The students were recognized at an awards ceremony with medals and invitations to join Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Over the years, the society has had more than 200 Nobel laureates among its members. Nearly 200 undergraduate and graduate students, representing 100 institutions, participated in the two-day conference.   More »

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 »

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 »

Steven Handel, adjunct professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Irvine, has been elected an honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects. This designation is awarded to individuals whose achievements are of national or international significance and have influenced the profession of landscape architecture. Handel, also a professor at Rutgers University, supervises the overall ecological design for the Orange County Great Park.   More »

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 »

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 »

The genes that make a fruit fly’s eyes red also produce red wing patterns in the Heliconius butterfly (pictured) found in South and Central America, finds a new study by a UC Irvine entomologist. Bob Reed, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, discovered that genes involved in making insect eye pigments evolved over time to also make wing pigments in butterflies. This finding sheds light on the genetic causes of wing patterns and why, in the Heliconius, those patterns can vary widely from region to region. Study results appeared online this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.   More »

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 »

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 »

Albert F. Bennett, an evolutionary and comparative physiologist and two-time acting dean, has been named dean of the UC Irvine School of Biological Sciences, effective immediately. Bennett, 63, will lead a rapidly growing school that is home to more than 4,600 students, 100 faculty members and $39 million in annual grant and contract funding. Since joining the UCI faculty in 1974, Bennett has chaired two departments and has served twice as acting dean of the School of Biological Sciences, the most recent stint from August 2006 to present. He has spent his entire faculty research career at UCI.   More »

John Avise, distinguished professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Irvine, has published a new book titled On Evolution. The book -- comprised of essays rewritten from his previously published articles -- is the first single-volume collection of Avise's work. The essays reveal Avise's unique perspectives on major topics in evolutionary biology, from how to define a species to the connections between conservation and evolutionary biology. Avise's research on mitochondrial DNA helped create the discipline of phylogeography, and his broader contributions to numerous aspects of molecular ecology, evolution and conservation are also widely recognized.   More »

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 »

The UC Irvine Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics has been awarded $5.6 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health to continue training students to apply advanced computer and information technologies in the biological and medical sciences. The funding will be used to expand the interdisciplinary Biomedical Informatics Training program, an initiative led by IGB Director and Chancellor’s Professor Pierre Baldi (pictured) and Professor G. Wesley Hatfield to train graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the UCI Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, The Henry Samueli School of Engineering, and the schools of physical sciences, biological sciences, and medicine.   More »

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 »

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 »

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 »

If you've always wanted to know how to extract DNA from a termite, harvest stem cells from the cerebral cortex of a mouse or coax a Jacky dragon to take cues from moving dots, have we got a Web site for you. Dr. Aaron Kolski-Andreaco (pictured), a UC Irvine graduate, and Spencer Currle, a graduate student in the department of developmental and cell biology, teamed up with researchers from Harvard and launched the Journal of Visualized Experiments, a Web site that shares highly technical scientific methodology on video. Wired magazine in its June 26 edition called JoVE the "YouTube for test tubes." Kolski-Andreaco, scientific editor for the site, and Currle came up with the idea and refined it last year in the Paul Merage Business School's business plan competition. A fortuitous meeting with Moshe Pritsker of Harvard Medical School and Nikita Bernstein, Web designer, who had similar ideas resulted in the JoVE partnership.   More »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Albert F. Bennett, acting dean of the School of Biological Sciences, has performed the first experimental test of whether trade-offs necessarily accompany environmental adaptation. The trade-off hypothesis states that when populations of organisms evolve and improve in some areas, they lose abilities elsewhere. Bennett used 24 replicate populations of the bacterium Escherichia coli that had genetically adapted to low temperature (20°C) and measured whether they lost their ability to handle high temperature (40°C), as predicted by the trade-off hypothesis. He found that two-thirds of the populations lost performance capacity at high temperature as predicted, but one-third did not, and one even improved its performance in the heat. This study was reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.   More »

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 »