UC Science Today

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."

Controlling a plant’s stress tolerance can have a significant effect on agriculture worldwide. At the University of California, Riverside, plant cell biologist Sean Cutler found that a naturally produced stress hormone in plants called abscisic acid, or ABA, helps plants survive by inhibiting their growth in times of stress, like drought.

"We came at this from a chemical perspective and my lab now is working on trying to improve these chemicals and create new sorts of options for controlling stress tolerance in the field."

As California faces its worst drought in history – Cutler’s research couldn’t come at a better time. While there’s still more work to be done, earlier this year his lab tested a reengineered version of ABA and were able to revive tomato plants that went 12 days without water. Plants without the reengineered receptor died.

"We certainly can’t claim that we’ve solved the problem, but a lot of people in this field believe that this particular molecule and its pathway is critical to moving forward in that area."

For the first time, bioengineers at the University of California, Berkeley have developed a cardiac system that models how the human heart responds to drugs. Study leader Kevin Healy says that the inch-long cardiac chip, derived from adult stem cells, is a major step forward in developing a faster and more accurate drug-screening tool.

"I think the major use for this will be preclinical trials for drug screening, and how you would screen different drugs, and ultimately replace animal experiments, which many would argue are inefficient, sort of broken. They’re not very good at predicting human clinical response to certain drugs."

Healy says that the cardiac chip could also significantly improve the cost and time it takes to develop a drug.

"We would drastically reduce the cost of drug discovery, and the duration. Saving the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare industry significant cost savings when treating patients."

Controlling a plant’s stress tolerance can have a significant effect on agriculture worldwide. At the University of California, Riverside, plant cell biologist Sean Cutler found that a naturally produced stress hormone in plants called abscisic acid, or ABA, helps plants survive by inhibiting their growth in times of stress, like drought.

"We came at this from a chemical perspective and my lab now is working on trying to improve these chemicals and create new sorts of options for controlling stress tolerance in the field."

As California faces its worst drought in history – Cutler’s research couldn’t come at a better time. While there’s still more work to be done, earlier this year his lab tested a reengineered version of ABA and were able to revive tomato plants that went 12 days without water. Plants without the reengineered receptor died.

"We certainly can’t claim that we’ve solved the problem, but a lot of people in this field believe that this particular molecule and its pathway is critical to moving forward in that area."

For the first time, bioengineers at the University of California, Berkeley have developed a cardiac system that models how the human heart responds to drugs. Study leader Kevin Healy says that the inch-long cardiac chip, derived from adult stem cells, is a major step forward in developing a faster and more accurate drug-screening tool.

"I think the major use for this will be preclinical trials for drug screening, and how you would screen different drugs, and ultimately replace animal experiments, which many would argue are inefficient, sort of broken. They’re not very good at predicting human clinical response to certain drugs."

Healy says that the cardiac chip could also significantly improve the cost and time it takes to develop a drug.

"We would drastically reduce the cost of drug discovery, and the duration. Saving the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare industry significant cost savings when treating patients."

Controlling a plant’s stress tolerance can have a significant effect on agriculture worldwide. At the University of California, Riverside, plant cell biologist Sean Cutler found that a naturally produced stress hormone in plants called abscisic acid, or ABA, helps plants survive by inhibiting their growth in times of stress, like drought.

"We came at this from a chemical perspective and my lab now is working on trying to improve these chemicals and create new sorts of options for controlling stress tolerance in the field."

As California faces its worst drought in history – Cutler’s research couldn’t come at a better time. While there’s still more work to be done, earlier this year his lab tested a reengineered version of ABA and were able to revive tomato plants that went 12 days without water. Plants without the reengineered receptor died.

"We certainly can’t claim that we’ve solved the problem, but a lot of people in this field believe that this particular molecule and its pathway is critical to moving forward in that area."

For the first time, bioengineers at the University of California, Berkeley have developed a cardiac system that models how the human heart responds to drugs. Study leader Kevin Healy says that the inch-long cardiac chip, derived from adult stem cells, is a major step forward in developing a faster and more accurate drug-screening tool.

"I think the major use for this will be preclinical trials for drug screening, and how you would screen different drugs, and ultimately replace animal experiments, which many would argue are inefficient, sort of broken. They’re not very good at predicting human clinical response to certain drugs."

Healy says that the cardiac chip could also significantly improve the cost and time it takes to develop a drug.

"We would drastically reduce the cost of drug discovery, and the duration. Saving the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare industry significant cost savings when treating patients."

As the number of adults in the United States over age sixty-five continues to rise, it’s become more important to help these seniors stay healthy. Neuroscientist Julene Johnson of the University of California, San Francisco says that aside from the typical approaches of eating right, sleeping well, and exercising regularly, singing in a choir could also have positive health benefits.

"It requires attention as you pay attention to the choir conductor. And of course singing involves articulation and language. And so it’s possible that singing in a choir will help engage those memory networks of the brain, but also more executive function."

Johnson says that the social and physical aspects of singing in a choir may also contribute to better overall health. If the results from her study are positive, she hopes that it could make creative arts more available for older adults.

"We hope that it could change some policy in terms of making the arts more available for older adults, or in general through the lifespan."

As the number of adults in the United States over age sixty-five continues to rise, it’s become more important to help these seniors stay healthy. Neuroscientist Julene Johnson of the University of California, San Francisco says that aside from the typical approaches of eating right, sleeping well, and exercising regularly, singing in a choir could also have positive health benefits.

"It requires attention as you pay attention to the choir conductor. And of course singing involves articulation and language. And so it’s possible that singing in a choir will help engage those memory networks of the brain, but also more executive function."

Johnson says that the social and physical aspects of singing in a choir may also contribute to better overall health. If the results from her study are positive, she hopes that it could make creative arts more available for older adults.

"We hope that it could change some policy in terms of making the arts more available for older adults, or in general through the lifespan."

The ability to use computational models for engineering applications has advanced so much in just the last decade. Mechanical engineer Lee Glascoe of the Computational Engineering Division at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used advanced 3-D modeling to ensure that soil filter design standards for dams dating back over 50 years are still valid in the event of an earthquake.

"The advances in numerical techniques and the advances in high-performance computing allow us to address problems that we just simply could not address 10 years ago, let alone twenty years ago. I remember when I first started at the laboratories, I actually started at Los Alamos before coming to Lawrence Livermore, and I was just amazed that we were able to model anything in three dimensions! Everybody’s doing that now, but that next breakthrough in high-performance computing really can make the different in addressing things down to the grain scale. So, it’s really transformed the community."