UC Science Today

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, or AMS, is a technique for measuring isotope ratios with very high selectively, sensitivity and precision. It was originally developed as a geophysical instrument to do carbon dating of artifacts. About two decades ago, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory developed it to do biomedical applications.

"We were kind of the pioneers in that front and it’s just kind of taken off from there. We’ve looked at low levels of environmental toxicants and now we’re getting into the human area so we can do actual real world human experiments using this type of technology."

That’s medical scientist Mike Malfatti of the Livermore Lab. He’s been using a new biological AMS instrument to develop a test to predict how people will respond to chemotherapeutic drugs. Malfatti and this team have been working with colleagues at the University of California, Davis.

"It’s really opened up a lot of opportunities for us – almost a whole new field of study being able to actually do real in-human studies where previously those studies weren’t able to be done."

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, or AMS, is a technique for measuring isotope ratios with very high selectively, sensitivity and precision. It was originally developed as a geophysical instrument to do carbon dating of artifacts. About two decades ago, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory developed it to do biomedical applications.

"We were kind of the pioneers in that front and it’s just kind of taken off from there. We’ve looked at low levels of environmental toxicants and now we’re getting into the human area so we can do actual real world human experiments using this type of technology."

That’s medical scientist Mike Malfatti of the Livermore Lab. He’s been using a new biological AMS instrument to develop a test to predict how people will respond to chemotherapeutic drugs. Malfatti and this team have been working with colleagues at the University of California, Davis.

"It’s really opened up a lot of opportunities for us – almost a whole new field of study being able to actually do real in-human studies where previously those studies weren’t able to be done."

In the pharmaceutical industry, making a new drug costs an average of $5 billion and can take anywhere from ten to fifteen years to develop. Bioengineering professor Kevin Healy of the University of California, Berkeley says a large part of the problem is because preclinical trials rely heavily on animal models that don’t translate well to humans.

"Animals are not humans, they don’t have the same response to drugs. Many well-known experts in the field will tell you that the animal experiments really aren’t very good predictors of drug function. They do help out with safety, but not efficacy or performance of the drug."

So, Healy’s team developed a small cardiac chip that effectively models how the human heart responds to drugs. He says that the device could significantly cut the time and cost it takes to develop a drug.

"We believe, ultimately, if we and others are successful in developing various microphysiological systems, we’ll have a significant improvement in both."

In the pharmaceutical industry, making a new drug costs an average of $5 billion and can take anywhere from ten to fifteen years to develop. Bioengineering professor Kevin Healy of the University of California, Berkeley says a large part of the problem is because preclinical trials rely heavily on animal models that don’t translate well to humans.

"Animals are not humans, they don’t have the same response to drugs. Many well-known experts in the field will tell you that the animal experiments really aren’t very good predictors of drug function. They do help out with safety, but not efficacy or performance of the drug."

So, Healy’s team developed a small cardiac chip that effectively models how the human heart responds to drugs. He says that the device could significantly cut the time and cost it takes to develop a drug.

"We believe, ultimately, if we and others are successful in developing various microphysiological systems, we’ll have a significant improvement in both."

Pupil dilation typically occurs when we process new information or respond to changing environments. But in a recent University of California, Berkeley study, researchers have found that weaker pupil response is associated with high anxiety. Study leader Sonia Bishop says that this suggests why highly anxious individuals may find it harder to make decisions in volatile environments.

"In low anxious individuals, their pupils really track information in volatile or changeable situation. And so it’s suggesting that there’s this implicit processing of that information which is working well. But in high anxious individuals, we don’t see that tracking, so their pupils are not responsive to their information. So this suggests there’s something wrong in that system of the brain which deals with sending out that signal that this is important information."

Bishop says that the findings may lead to better therapies and targeted drugs for anxiety.

"So one suggestion could be that that system is kind of misfiring and if we give people drugs based on that system, we might be able to normalize it."

Pupil dilation typically occurs when we process new information or respond to changing environments. But in a recent University of California, Berkeley study, researchers have found that weaker pupil response is associated with high anxiety. Study leader Sonia Bishop says that this suggests why highly anxious individuals may find it harder to make decisions in volatile environments.

"In low anxious individuals, their pupils really track information in volatile or changeable situation. And so it’s suggesting that there’s this implicit processing of that information which is working well. But in high anxious individuals, we don’t see that tracking, so their pupils are not responsive to their information. So this suggests there’s something wrong in that system of the brain which deals with sending out that signal that this is important information."

Bishop says that the findings may lead to better therapies and targeted drugs for anxiety.

"So one suggestion could be that that system is kind of misfiring and if we give people drugs based on that system, we might be able to normalize it."

Pupil dilation typically occurs when we process new information or respond to changing environments. But in a recent University of California, Berkeley study, researchers have found that weaker pupil response is associated with high anxiety. Study leader Sonia Bishop says that this suggests why highly anxious individuals may find it harder to make decisions in volatile environments.

"In low anxious individuals, their pupils really track information in volatile or changeable situation. And so it’s suggesting that there’s this implicit processing of that information which is working well. But in high anxious individuals, we don’t see that tracking, so their pupils are not responsive to their information. So this suggests there’s something wrong in that system of the brain which deals with sending out that signal that this is important information."

Bishop says that the findings may lead to better therapies and targeted drugs for anxiety.

"So one suggestion could be that that system is kind of misfiring and if we give people drugs based on that system, we might be able to normalize it."

It’s long been thought that neurons that form a hunger circuit in your brain basically determine whether or not you take the next bite of food – that it’s controlling the chewing and swallowing associated with food intake. But a study led by physiologist Zachary Knight of the University of California, San Francisco found in mice that these neurons are actually controlled by the sensory detection of food.

"The discovery suggests that that their primary purpose is actually to promote food discovery – to promote foraging, this act of getting motivated to go out into the world and search for food. Evolutionarily, that makes a lot of sense because if you’re a mouse that’s out in the wild and you probably don’t have access to a lot of food on a regular basis and so the really key decision you need to make is when you are going to risk your life by predation, by going out and searching for food. And so the decision that the mouse really needs to get right, and that evolution would have shaped, is the decision to search for food. So, the neuromechanisms that control the actual decision, to take the next bite are one, probably different and two, probably under weaker control than this decision to search for food."

It’s long been thought that neurons that form a hunger circuit in your brain basically determine whether or not you take the next bite of food – that it’s controlling the chewing and swallowing associated with food intake. But a study led by physiologist Zachary Knight of the University of California, San Francisco found in mice that these neurons are actually controlled by the sensory detection of food.

"The discovery suggests that that their primary purpose is actually to promote food discovery – to promote foraging, this act of getting motivated to go out into the world and search for food. Evolutionarily, that makes a lot of sense because if you’re a mouse that’s out in the wild and you probably don’t have access to a lot of food on a regular basis and so the really key decision you need to make is when you are going to risk your life by predation, by going out and searching for food. And so the decision that the mouse really needs to get right, and that evolution would have shaped, is the decision to search for food. So, the neuromechanisms that control the actual decision, to take the next bite are one, probably different and two, probably under weaker control than this decision to search for food."

Biologists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have been collaborating with a host of scientists and putting their Microbial Detection Array to good use. Biologist Crystal Jaing explains that their lab-developed biological detection technology contains over 300 thousand probes that are used to detect thousands of viruses and bacteria. They currently have a couple of collaboration with the University of California, Davis.

"So, one is in the cancer field, look at lymphoma samples and identify pathogen association with a different kind of lymphoma. And we also have discussions with other researchers in terms of looking for antimicrobial resistance because there are a number of pathologies that are common hospital-acquired infections and very often they are kid of a multi-drug resistance. And so those are the type of application we can potentially use this technology for, to rapidly identify those pathogens and identify the antimicrobial profile for those pathogens as well."