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A new approach to drug design, pioneered by a group of researchers at UCSF and Mt. Sinai, New York, promises to help identify future drugs to fight cancer and other diseases that will be more effective and have fewer side effects.
<p>Academic medical centers can play a larger role in drug development and testing, according to an FDA official, who says there is a need for better strategies to identify winners, minimize costs and reduce failures during drug development.</p>
<p>Malaria is an infectious disease caused by a parasite transmitted from person to person by the bite of a mosquito. In the past two centuries, numerous research and public health efforts worldwide have sought to combat this ancient scourge as this timeline shows.</p>
Scientists have known for years that when vampire bats tear through an animal’s skin with their razor-sharp teeth, their noses guide them to the best spots – where a precise bite will strike a vein and spill forth nourishing blood. But nobody knew exactly how bats knew where to bite – until now.
Researchers at UCSF and in Michigan, North Carolina and Spain have discovered how genetic mutations cause a number of rare human diseases, which include Meckel syndrome, Joubert syndrome and several other disorders.
<p>Having developed an algorithm that discovered a large quantity of drug-producing bacteria in and on humans, Fischbach has turned his lab’s attention to studying their populations and interactions with each other. This, he posits, can greatly influence a person’s overall health and disease.</p>
<p>Swallowing pills means medication must face the challenge of surviving the harsh environment of the digestive tract. As a result, people must take larger doses than they need. Using micro and nano-fabrication techniques developed by the computer chip industry, Desai’s lab is creating tiny devices that take multiple drugs directly to where they are needed, using less medication, minimizing side effects and making the process safer for the patient. </p>
A 10-month study of healthy honey bees by UCSF scientists has identified four new viruses that infect bees, while revealing that each of the viruses or bacteria previously linked to colony collapse is present in healthy hives as well.
<p>Experts at UCSF and Caltech are pushing the boundaries of creative problem solving to address important clinical problems with the hope that the talent pool at both institutions, combined with an entrepreneurial spirit, will advance health care innovation.</p>
Men and women had starkly different immune system responses to chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, with men showing no response and women showing a strong response, in two studies by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco.
Researchers exploring human metabolism at UCSF have uncovered a handful of chemical compounds that regulate fat storage in worms, offering a new tool for understanding obesity and finding future treatments for diseases associated with obesity.
UCSF researchers have developed a new approach to decoding the vast information embedded in an organism’s genome, while shedding light on exactly how cells interpret their genetic material to create RNA messages and launch new processes in the cell.
Weight gain and environmental pollutants might be linked, an award-winning worm researcher suggests.
A team of UCSF researchers has engineered E. coli with the key molecular circuitry that will enable genetic engineers to program cells to communicate and perform computations.