Sewage Sampling Robots Speed SARS-CoV-2 Detection
An automated wastewater monitoring technique could enable researchers to predict outbreaks of the virus up to a week in advance.
Why Rewilding the Gut Might Not Help Fight the Diseases of Industrialization
A new article challenges the idea that turning back the clock of our bodies’ bacterial microbiome could fight non-communicable disease.
How SARS-CoV-2 Hijacks Human Cells to Evade Immune System
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have discovered one way in which SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, hijacks human cell machinery to blunt the immune response, allowing it to establish infection, replicate and cause disease.
Evaluating the Effects of Ethanol’s Embrace: Studying the Viability of Storing Biospecimens Using Easily Accessible Materials
As microbiome research has steadily grown throughout the past decade, so too has the desire to maximize the diversity of microbial samples by moving collection work outside of the laboratory and into remote environments. This has presented unique challenges in sample storage, as there is no established protocol for microbiome preservation. Additionally, the expansion of…
Understudied Mutations Have Big Impact on Gene Expression
An international team of researchers led by computer scientists at the University of California San Diego have identified 163 variable number tandem repeats (VNTRs) that actively regulate gene expression. In a paper published in Nature Communications this week, the researchers provide new insights into this understudied mechanism, how it may drive disease and other traits…
Wisdom, Loneliness and Your Intestinal Multitude
It may take guts — or more precisely, a diverse gut microbiome — to achieve wisdom and fend off loneliness. Or perhaps it’s the other way around, report UC San Diego researchers
Repurposed Heart and Flu Drugs May Help Body Fight Sepsis
Despite continued improvements in antibiotics and hospital intensive care, staph sepsis — a bloodstream infection caused by Staphylococcus aureus bacteria — still causes severe illness or death in 20 to 30 percent of patients who contract it. Rather than continue to throw more antibiotics at the problem, University of California San Diego researchers want to…
Researchers at UC San Diego Unveil New Interactive Web Tool for Visualizing Large-Scale Phylogenetic Trees
The proliferation of sequencing technologies and an ever-increasing focus on ‘omic studies over the past several years have spawned massive quantities of data and many tools to process and analyze the results. As these tools have evolved, so has the need for even greater scale and the ability to visualize complex data sets in more…
Scientists hustle to create new tests, drugs and expand telemedicine to battle COVID-19 over the long term
San Diego’s Scripps Health created a customized telemedicine conferencing system last March. It took just three weeks. Since then more than 510,000 patients have had “virtual visits” with doctors, helping minimize the spread of COVID-19.
The coronavirus variants experts are most concerned about
New, mutated strains of the coronavirus are causing worry around the world as health officials race to vaccinate as many people as possible. Dr. Jon LaPook reports on why the new strains are popping up.
