UC Science Today

What if you could find out within minutes how you or a loved one will respond to certain therapeutic drugs, including chemotherapy? Well, biomedical scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are teaming up with medical oncologists at UC Davis to see if they can do just that. In this full-length interview, learn how the Lab's biological accelerator mass spectrometer is making this possible.

What if you could find out within minutes how you or a loved one will respond to certain therapeutic drugs, including chemotherapy? Well, biomedical scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are teaming up with medical oncologists at UC Davis to see if they can do just that. In this full-length interview, learn how the Lab's biological accelerator mass spectrometer is making this possible.

What if you could find out within minutes how you or a loved one will respond to certain therapeutic drugs, including chemotherapy? Well, biomedical scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are teaming up with medical oncologists at UC Davis to see if they can do just that. In this full-length interview, learn how the Lab's biological accelerator mass spectrometer is making this possible.

Bioinspired components are a big part of materials science. Mechanical engineer Suveen Mathaudhu of the University of California, Riverside explains that the concept is to use the principles of a particular organism to design something synthetic that can work in a similar way.

"One example that I’ll give is nacre, which is also known as mother of pearl, so you see these in shells and you see them in the ocean. And they have to be able to get bashed around against hard rocks and hard surfaces and when you look at the microstructure, at the fundamental features of nacre, you find platelets of calcium carbonate, hard ceramic shells with glue-like material in the middle that can absorb energy."

Using these principles, engineers are able to extract a way of making composites for applications like car bumpers that can survive crashes, or for a soldier’s armor.

"And in very similar ways, we can look at other things within nature and design based on the way they’re designed, to meet some modern application."

Bioinspired components are a big part of materials science. Mechanical engineer Suveen Mathaudhu of the University of California, Riverside explains that the concept is to use the principles of a particular organism to design something synthetic that can work in a similar way.

"One example that I’ll give is nacre, which is also known as mother of pearl, so you see these in shells and you see them in the ocean. And they have to be able to get bashed around against hard rocks and hard surfaces and when you look at the microstructure, at the fundamental features of nacre, you find platelets of calcium carbonate, hard ceramic shells with glue-like material in the middle that can absorb energy."

Using these principles, engineers are able to extract a way of making composites for applications like car bumpers that can survive crashes, or for a soldier’s armor.

"And in very similar ways, we can look at other things within nature and design based on the way they’re designed, to meet some modern application."

Bioinspired components are a big part of materials science. Mechanical engineer Suveen Mathaudhu of the University of California, Riverside explains that the concept is to use the principles of a particular organism to design something synthetic that can work in a similar way.

"One example that I’ll give is nacre, which is also known as mother of pearl, so you see these in shells and you see them in the ocean. And they have to be able to get bashed around against hard rocks and hard surfaces and when you look at the microstructure, at the fundamental features of nacre, you find platelets of calcium carbonate, hard ceramic shells with glue-like material in the middle that can absorb energy."

Using these principles, engineers are able to extract a way of making composites for applications like car bumpers that can survive crashes, or for a soldier’s armor.

"And in very similar ways, we can look at other things within nature and design based on the way they’re designed, to meet some modern application."

What do cats and humans have in common? Heart disease probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind, but recent discoveries at the University of California, Davis have revealed how a genetic mutation can affect feline hearts. Researcher Mark Kittleson helped discover this mutation, which is linked to a type of heart disease seen in Maine coon and ragdoll cats as well as in humans.

"So when you have a mutation in a gene, it produces an abnormal protein. That protein then is in the cell and gets incorporated into the area where it should be."

The mutation affects the part of the heart cell that contracts known as the sarcomere. But since the protein is dysfunctional, its addition disrupts this function of the cell.

"We just came out with paper showing that the protein does get incorporated into the sarcomere. So if you could block it from actually forming, you could then… hopefully cure the disease, maybe even reverse it. We are working…to look at how this mutation actually causes the disease in cats, and using that as a model for the disease in humans."

What do cats and humans have in common? Heart disease probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind, but recent discoveries at the University of California, Davis have revealed how a genetic mutation can affect feline hearts. Researcher Mark Kittleson helped discover this mutation, which is linked to a type of heart disease seen in Maine coon and ragdoll cats as well as in humans.

"So when you have a mutation in a gene, it produces an abnormal protein. That protein then is in the cell and gets incorporated into the area where it should be."

The mutation affects the part of the heart cell that contracts known as the sarcomere. But since the protein is dysfunctional, its addition disrupts this function of the cell.

"We just came out with paper showing that the protein does get incorporated into the sarcomere. So if you could block it from actually forming, you could then… hopefully cure the disease, maybe even reverse it. We are working…to look at how this mutation actually causes the disease in cats, and using that as a model for the disease in humans."

What do cats and humans have in common? Heart disease probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind, but recent discoveries at the University of California, Davis have revealed how a genetic mutation can affect feline hearts. Researcher Mark Kittleson helped discover this mutation, which is linked to a type of heart disease seen in Maine coon and ragdoll cats as well as in humans.

"So when you have a mutation in a gene, it produces an abnormal protein. That protein then is in the cell and gets incorporated into the area where it should be."

The mutation affects the part of the heart cell that contracts known as the sarcomere. But since the protein is dysfunctional, its addition disrupts this function of the cell.

"We just came out with paper showing that the protein does get incorporated into the sarcomere. So if you could block it from actually forming, you could then… hopefully cure the disease, maybe even reverse it. We are working…to look at how this mutation actually causes the disease in cats, and using that as a model for the disease in humans."

What if your smartphone could double as a seismometer? Thanks to your phone’s sensors and a team of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, now it can. The app is called MyShake, and it can quickly issue a warning to those in danger zones when the shaking starts. Graduate student Qingkai Kong developed the algorithm, which works by gathering information from a worldwide network of phones.

"We can identify the location, magnitude, and also the origin and time of the earthquake. The benefit is that at places where we don’t have a traditional seismic network…we can monitor the earthquake, and we can issue the earthquake early warning to reduce the earthquake hazard."

MyShake’s algorithm can distinguish natural human activity from earthquake movement. The app is currently available for Android, but Kong hopes iPhones will be next.

"So we are now considering we expand it to iPhones and other platforms very soon in the future."