UC Science Today

A new supercomputer simulation is helping scientists visualize the evolution of stars. The NASA-funded project is based on code written by astrophysicist Richard Klein of the University of California, Berkeley and the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. According to Klein, this simulation is one step towards a comprehensive theory of star formation, which begins when a cloud of interstellar gas collapses under gravity.

"So we start with these turbulent magnetized clouds. Follow the cloud for up to a million years of evolution, all the way to the point where stars can form in clusters."

Klein turns to observations of real stars to check the results.

"We begin to calculate what the properties of those stellar clusters are in great detail and then compare the properties that we get from the large scale simulations with what the observations are actually telling us."

The team is currently working towards even larger-scale simulations.

A new supercomputer simulation is helping scientists visualize the evolution of stars. The NASA-funded project is based on code written by astrophysicist Richard Klein of the University of California, Berkeley and the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. According to Klein, this simulation is one step towards a comprehensive theory of star formation, which begins when a cloud of interstellar gas collapses under gravity.

"So we start with these turbulent magnetized clouds. Follow the cloud for up to a million years of evolution, all the way to the point where stars can form in clusters."

Klein turns to observations of real stars to check the results.

"We begin to calculate what the properties of those stellar clusters are in great detail and then compare the properties that we get from the large scale simulations with what the observations are actually telling us."

The team is currently working towards even larger-scale simulations.

This week on Science Today. Your brain is a precious organ, and one way your body protects it is by using the blood-brain barrier. This is basically a filter set up between the blood in your circulatory system and your brain. The barrier determines which things will or will not pass through. At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, bioengineer Monica Moya is hoping their 3D bioprinting technology can help recreate the structure.

"So we’re trying to build the blood-brain barrier, which is the blood vessels in your brain that are responsible for making sure that not just anything gets across, but that’s an interesting field because sometimes you do want things to get across."

A 3D printed blood-brain barrier would be helpful for something like drug research, because you actually want certain medications to pass through. We also speak with UC Berkeley chemist Chris Chang about another surprising feature of the brain – the metal nutrient copper. Chang explains how copper helps your body metabolize fat.

"There’s a process which stops normal fat burning, and what we found was that copper stops or blocks what normally blocks fat burning. And so by blocking the block, then you actually allow fat burning to proceed."

And did you know that NSAIDs, a common type of anti-inflammatory, can be bad for your heart? Researcher Aldrin Gomes of the University of California, Davis found that vitamin C might prevent this toxicity.

"We pretreated the cells with vitamin C before we gave NSAIDs, and this prevented cell death."

If you want to keep on top of the latest University of California research. Subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. You can also follow us on Facebook. I’m Larissa Branin, thanks for listening.

Subscribe to Science Today:

iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD

Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today

Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday

Stories mentioned in this roundup:

https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/blood_brain_barrier

https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/copper_fat

https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/vitamin_c

This week on Science Today. Your brain is a precious organ, and one way your body protects it is by using the blood-brain barrier. This is basically a filter set up between the blood in your circulatory system and your brain. The barrier determines which things will or will not pass through. At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, bioengineer Monica Moya is hoping their 3D bioprinting technology can help recreate the structure.

"So we’re trying to build the blood-brain barrier, which is the blood vessels in your brain that are responsible for making sure that not just anything gets across, but that’s an interesting field because sometimes you do want things to get across."

A 3D printed blood-brain barrier would be helpful for something like drug research, because you actually want certain medications to pass through. We also speak with UC Berkeley chemist Chris Chang about another surprising feature of the brain – the metal nutrient copper. Chang explains how copper helps your body metabolize fat.

"There’s a process which stops normal fat burning, and what we found was that copper stops or blocks what normally blocks fat burning. And so by blocking the block, then you actually allow fat burning to proceed."

And did you know that NSAIDs, a common type of anti-inflammatory, can be bad for your heart? Researcher Aldrin Gomes of the University of California, Davis found that vitamin C might prevent this toxicity.

"We pretreated the cells with vitamin C before we gave NSAIDs, and this prevented cell death."

If you want to keep on top of the latest University of California research. Subscribe to UC Science Today on iTunes or Stitcher. You can also follow us on Facebook. I’m Larissa Branin, thanks for listening.

Subscribe to Science Today:

iTunes: apple.co/1TQBewD

Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/science-today

Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucsciencetoday

Stories mentioned in this roundup:

https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/blood_brain_barrier

https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/copper_fat

https://soundcloud.com/sciencetoday/vitamin_c

While tarantula venom contains many different toxins, recent research at the University of California, San Francisco has identified two that can activate pain-sensing neurons. To prove their effectiveness, researcher Jeremiah Osteen synthesized the toxins individually.

"Having access to a synthetic toxin, you’re able to make it in very large quantities, whereas you would otherwise have to milk lots of spiders, and that’s both labor intensive and these spiders aren’t always easy to come by. So once you identify what you think is the toxin that’s causing your activity, you want to go and synthesize that and be able to show that you can recapitulate the activity without having to purify it directly from the venom."

These two toxins can selectively manipulate pain fibers. One of them targeted nerve fibers not previously linked to any pain pathways.

"How might these fibers be involved in different types of chronic pain disorders, and ultimately, can we tweak the chemistry of the toxin to be able to manipulate these fibers differently?"

While tarantula venom contains many different toxins, recent research at the University of California, San Francisco has identified two that can activate pain-sensing neurons. To prove their effectiveness, researcher Jeremiah Osteen synthesized the toxins individually.

"Having access to a synthetic toxin, you’re able to make it in very large quantities, whereas you would otherwise have to milk lots of spiders, and that’s both labor intensive and these spiders aren’t always easy to come by. So once you identify what you think is the toxin that’s causing your activity, you want to go and synthesize that and be able to show that you can recapitulate the activity without having to purify it directly from the venom."

These two toxins can selectively manipulate pain fibers. One of them targeted nerve fibers not previously linked to any pain pathways.

"How might these fibers be involved in different types of chronic pain disorders, and ultimately, can we tweak the chemistry of the toxin to be able to manipulate these fibers differently?"

We’ve all heard that vitamin C is good for the immune system, but can it also protect our hearts from damaging drugs? Associate Professor Aldrin Gomes of the University of California, Davis says the antioxidant might in fact buffer the heart from NSAIDs, or common pain relievers like Ibuprofen. Their chronic use is known to cause side effects such as heart problems, even cardiac cell death. So to learn more, Gomes turned to the lab.

"Vitamin C is readily available, and it’s easy to test and easy to understand the mechanism. We pre-treated the cells with vitamin C before we gave NSAIDs, and this prevented cell death."

Gomes explains NSAIDs can reduce the ability of cardiac cells to make energy and cause a toxic buildup of cells. But on top of this protective effect, vitamin C also has mild pain relieving properties.

"So together, it would actually be pretty useful for pain relief. We don’t know if this will work in humans, but our longer term goal is to see if taking vitamin C together with the NSAID will prevent the side effects."

Opposites attract even in your blood stream. Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have teamed up with the University of California, San Francisco to develop a new device that soaks up excess chemotherapy drugs after treatment. The goal is to reduce the toxicity of these treatments and prevent unpleasant side effects. According to engineer Chelsea Chen, the key is electric charge. Chen, who designed the materials for the device, says since certain cancer drugs have a positive charge, she used a negatively charged material in the membrane.

"One block is mechanically strong. It keeps the membrane together. It’s made of polyethylene. It’s just like garbage bags, also made of polyethylene. And the other block is the active block. It’s the drug capture block. So it contains sulfonic acid groups, and this group is negatively charged."

The device is simply inserted into a vein during a chemotherapy session, then removed afterwards. Chen says the focus is to create a membrane that picks up as much of the drug as quickly as possible, so it doesn’t circulate to the rest of the body.

Opposites attract even in your blood stream. Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have teamed up with the University of California, San Francisco to develop a new device that soaks up excess chemotherapy drugs after treatment. The goal is to reduce the toxicity of these treatments and prevent unpleasant side effects. According to engineer Chelsea Chen, the key is electric charge. Chen, who designed the materials for the device, says since certain cancer drugs have a positive charge, she used a negatively charged material in the membrane.

"One block is mechanically strong. It keeps the membrane together. It’s made of polyethylene. It’s just like garbage bags, also made of polyethylene. And the other block is the active block. It’s the drug capture block. So it contains sulfonic acid groups, and this group is negatively charged."

The device is simply inserted into a vein during a chemotherapy session, then removed afterwards. Chen says the focus is to create a membrane that picks up as much of the drug as quickly as possible, so it doesn’t circulate to the rest of the body.

We’ve all heard that vitamin C is good for the immune system, but can it also protect our hearts from damaging drugs? Associate Professor Aldrin Gomes of the University of California, Davis says the antioxidant might in fact buffer the heart from NSAIDs, or common pain relievers like Ibuprofen. Their chronic use is known to cause side effects such as heart problems, even cardiac cell death. So to learn more, Gomes turned to the lab.

"Vitamin C is readily available, and it’s easy to test and easy to understand the mechanism. We pre-treated the cells with vitamin C before we gave NSAIDs, and this prevented cell death."

Gomes explains NSAIDs can reduce the ability of cardiac cells to make energy and cause a toxic buildup of cells. But on top of this protective effect, vitamin C also has mild pain relieving properties.

"So together, it would actually be pretty useful for pain relief. We don’t know if this will work in humans, but our longer term goal is to see if taking vitamin C together with the NSAID will prevent the side effects."