The blockbuster HBO show, The Last of Us, uses an intriguing premise to explain the world’s post-apocalyptic setting: Ophiocordyceps unilateralis — aka the “zombie-ant fungus” — has jumped from insects to humans. The fungus takes over a host’s body with spores that compel the host to seek opportunities to expel the spores and infect others, which compels those hosts to spread the spores to others, and so on, and so on.

So how realistic is this scenario? According to Anita Sil, professor at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UCSF, not very.

“It’s extremely, extremely unlikely for the premise of the show to be true in the sense that, you know, I very strongly doubt that Ophiocordyceps make a jump from insect species to mammals,” Sil told us.

But fungal disease epidemics are not completely out of the realm of possibility. 

“There’s actually an outbreak right now of a fungus called Blastomyces in some sort of processing plant in Michigan,” Sil said. “All of a sudden, everybody in a facility is inhaling large quantities of those fungal spores and then getting infected. So that’s a really serious situation.”

So how concerned should we be? And could you defend against possible infection?

Find out on this episode of The Synapse podcast. 

Ankur Paliwal joined a few dozen UCSF student during Synapse’s the fifth annual science speaker series on April 13. He’s an independent journalist who writes about science, inequity and LGBTQIA+ persons, and has reported from India, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Germany and the United States for various international media outlets such as Nature, Scientific American, Undark and the Guardian. He is also the senior editor with the Asian Scientist Magazine which focuses on science and scientists in Asia. 

Juli Riggs, a second year graduate student in the Biomedical Sciences program, talked to Dr. Anna Maria Valdez, professor and chair of nursing at Sonoma State University, about her DEI work and her responses to the comments below that she routinely hears. 

·  “I have been a nurse for XX years, and I have never seen racism in healthcare.”

·  “I am color blind.”

·  “I/we treat everyone the same.”

·  “What about the reverse racism I experience as a white person?”

·  “Increasing diversity in nursing means lowering standards.”

Synapse: UCSF Student Voices is proud to present the fourth annual science speaker series with an award-winning science journalist and children’s STEM author based in Long Island, New York. To watch the video recording of this event, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgCM4S5ToEE&t=2s.

Recorded on April 13, 2022.

Dr. Bob Wachter, UCSF’s Chair of the Department of Medicine, gained a vast twitter following during the COVID pandemic with his informative, direct, and sometimes personal tweets. He’s kept his followers up to speed throughout changes in the science, vaccination rates, and spread of infection. And as issues around the pandemic evolved, so did his position. In our latest podcast episode, Synapse contributor Janice Goh, a fourth year student in the UCSF Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics program, asked Dr. Wachter about masking, transmission rates, and possible new variants.

Originally published in March 8, 2022.

In January 2022, four UCSF health providers wrote an open letter urging California Gov. Gavin Newsom to drop mask mandates. Among them was Dr. Jeanne Noble, an associate professor of emergency medicine at UCSF. In this episode, Janice Goh, a fourth year PhD student at UCSF and a Synapse contributor, asked Dr. Noble why she believes mask mandates should be lifted, especially among children.

In this episode, Synapse editor-in-chief Victoria Turner has the pleasure of chatting with Jenny Qi, a 2017 PhD graduate from the Biomedical Sciences Program at UCSF and a former Synapse editor-in-chief. She now works at a competitive intelligence firm while continuing her work as a writer. Her work has been features in such publications as The New York Times, The Atlantic, Tin House, and ZYZZYVA. We talked to her about her recently published collection of poetry, Focal Point, which received the 2020 Steel Toe Books Poetry Award.

Pre-med student and Synapse contributor Sarah Siddiqui talks to UCSF second year medical students and co-presidents of Med Students For Choice, Neha Pondicherry and Meredith Klashman, about the fight for reproductive justice at a time when women’s bodily autonomy and Roe v. Wade are under attack.

Science journalist Esther Landhuis joins Synapse's editors-in-chief Victoria Turner and Jihee Yoon along with UCSF students for a discussion about her transition from scientist to science writing.