UC Science Today

While millions of Americans benefit from new medications to alleviate the symptoms of a variety of ailments, the long and expensive drug creation process can miss many side effects. And this causes about 100 thousand deaths each year. Now researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have discovered a high tech way to use supercomputers to identify proteins that cause medications to have certain adverse drug reactions.

"The whole goal of the project is to see if we can, basically using computational chemistry, which is used routinely to screen drugs to identify them as initial candidates, can we use those same tools and approaches to identify or red flag these problems up front."

That’s Montiago LaBute, an applied statistician at the Lab who is collaborating on this project.

"We kind of have this really nice environment where we’re sort of pushing the envelope in terms of computing in terms of new algorithmic techniques and then beyond that, take it to some place where pharmaceutical companies can use these approaches in order to expedite their development process."

While millions of Americans benefit from new medications to alleviate the symptoms of a variety of ailments, the long and expensive drug creation process can miss many side effects. And this causes about 100 thousand deaths each year. Now researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have discovered a high tech way to use supercomputers to identify proteins that cause medications to have certain adverse drug reactions.

"The whole goal of the project is to see if we can, basically using computational chemistry, which is used routinely to screen drugs to identify them as initial candidates, can we use those same tools and approaches to identify or red flag these problems up front."

That’s Montiago LaBute, an applied statistician at the Lab who is collaborating on this project.

"We kind of have this really nice environment where we’re sort of pushing the envelope in terms of computing in terms of new algorithmic techniques and then beyond that, take it to some place where pharmaceutical companies can use these approaches in order to expedite their development process."

Is it possible to cool an entire chunk of a city? Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are looking to China to conduct what they hope would be the world’s first large scale cool surface experiment. Staff scientist Ronnen Levinson says that the experiment could involve reflective roofs, walls, and pavements in an effort to cool cities with hot summers.

"What we hope to do in China is create a large scale—meaning covering at least a square kilometer— experiment where we have a region with cool surfaces that’s side by side with similar region that has conventional or warm surfaces. This provides an excellent opportunity for a real world demonstration and measurement to not just save energy in buildings, but to cool an entire chunk of city."

Levinson explains that the experiment is more practical in China because of its frequent building construction.

"China has a much higher rate of building construction and new buildings go up all the time; old buildings get replaced all the time."

Is it possible to cool an entire chunk of a city? Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are looking to China to conduct what they hope would be the world’s first large scale cool surface experiment. Staff scientist Ronnen Levinson says that the experiment could involve reflective roofs, walls, and pavements in an effort to cool cities with hot summers.

"What we hope to do in China is create a large scale—meaning covering at least a square kilometer— experiment where we have a region with cool surfaces that’s side by side with similar region that has conventional or warm surfaces. This provides an excellent opportunity for a real world demonstration and measurement to not just save energy in buildings, but to cool an entire chunk of city."

Levinson explains that the experiment is more practical in China because of its frequent building construction.

"China has a much higher rate of building construction and new buildings go up all the time; old buildings get replaced all the time."

When one thinks about palliative care, it’s often within the context of “at the end-of-life”, but Dr. Steve Pantilat, director of the Palliative Care Program at the University of California, San Francisco, says it should also be viewed as through the end of life.

"So, before and during and then with the family after. Our focus is how can you live well with serious illness? It is also about dying, but if all we think about is changing dying and how people die, it’s a little bit like saying, “we have to increase high school graduation rates and so we’re going to focus on 12th grade. You’ve got to go to preschool to really have an impact over time. And the same thing is true if we want the end of life to look better, We have to start way back, even before people get sick and begin to have these conversations about what’s important. So, what I see in the future is that this is just a normal part of our conversation."

When one thinks about palliative care, it’s often within the context of “at the end-of-life”, but Dr. Steve Pantilat, director of the Palliative Care Program at the University of California, San Francisco, says it should also be viewed as through the end of life.

"So, before and during and then with the family after. Our focus is how can you live well with serious illness? It is also about dying, but if all we think about is changing dying and how people die, it’s a little bit like saying, “we have to increase high school graduation rates and so we’re going to focus on 12th grade. You’ve got to go to preschool to really have an impact over time. And the same thing is true if we want the end of life to look better, We have to start way back, even before people get sick and begin to have these conversations about what’s important. So, what I see in the future is that this is just a normal part of our conversation."

When one thinks about palliative care, it’s often within the context of “at the end-of-life”, but Dr. Steve Pantilat, director of the Palliative Care Program at the University of California, San Francisco, says it should also be viewed as through the end of life.

"So, before and during and then with the family after. Our focus is how can you live well with serious illness? It is also about dying, but if all we think about is changing dying and how people die, it’s a little bit like saying, “we have to increase high school graduation rates and so we’re going to focus on 12th grade. You’ve got to go to preschool to really have an impact over time. And the same thing is true if we want the end of life to look better, We have to start way back, even before people get sick and begin to have these conversations about what’s important. So, what I see in the future is that this is just a normal part of our conversation."

The key to reversing the effects of aging may be in young blood. A collaborative study led by Saul Villeda at the University of California, San Francisco found that old mice showed signs of cognitive improvement and rejuvenation after being given injections from the blood of young mice.

"We looked at a particular region, which controls learning and memory, known as the hippocampus, and we found we could actually reverse signs of aging on the neurons themselves the structure, and also in learning and memory. So impairments that you see in an old animal were actually in part reversed, and they were much smarter after they received the young blood."

Villeda says that the old mice recognized spatial cues in a maze much faster with young blood than with old blood. He hopes the study will eventually translate to human therapeutics.

"I think it’s really important to do it in a controlled and appropriate way to make sure that the findings we have hold in a human, especially towards planning towards therapeutics."

The key to reversing the effects of aging may be in young blood. A collaborative study led by Saul Villeda at the University of California, San Francisco found that old mice showed signs of cognitive improvement and rejuvenation after being given injections from the blood of young mice.

"We looked at a particular region, which controls learning and memory, known as the hippocampus, and we found we could actually reverse signs of aging on the neurons themselves the structure, and also in learning and memory. So impairments that you see in an old animal were actually in part reversed, and they were much smarter after they received the young blood."

Villeda says that the old mice recognized spatial cues in a maze much faster with young blood than with old blood. He hopes the study will eventually translate to human therapeutics.

"I think it’s really important to do it in a controlled and appropriate way to make sure that the findings we have hold in a human, especially towards planning towards therapeutics."

The beauty of materials science is that it looks to nature for inspiration in designing materials. But there’s also just the merging of two different disciplines—engineering and biology. Materials scientist Robert Ritchie of the University of California, Berkeley says there’s a reason to be excited about combining these two fields.

"You’ve seen this in universities with all these bioengineering departments springing up. And I think it’s an interesting endeavor because my generation most engineers don’t know much biology. And most biologists don’t know engineering. And so it has been a difficult connection. But now the future generation is much more versed in both fields. So I think you’ll see a lot of interesting progress. And particularly in medicine, just think engineers have gotten into medicine now. And we have much more sophisticated ways of examining, these CAT scans and so forth; that has all come from the union of biology and engineering. So I think this is quite an exciting period for that."