UCLA leaders address employee questions about omicron variant at town hall
As the omicron wave nears its projected peak in the United States, UCLA leaders hosted a town hall for faculty and staff on Jan. 13 to offer the latest information on policies designed to keep the Bruin community as healthy as possible. The hour-long Zoom meeting addressed topics ranging from how staff and students can get free masks to the factors under consideration for returning to in-person work and learning.Some highlights:New mask requirements: Whenever indoors, all students, faculty and staff must use upgraded masks, such as well-fitting KN95s, N95s or medical-grade masks. UCLA is making masks available for free, ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - January 14, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Signaling mechanisms in pancreatic cancer cells could provide new target for treatment
Research led by scientists at theUCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center provides new insights into molecular “crosstalk” in pancreas cancer cells. The study, published in the journal Cell Reports, identifies vulnerabilities that could provide a target for therapeutic drugs already being studied for several different types of cancer. It was led by Dr. Caius Radu, a UCLA professor of molecular and medical pharmacology, and Dr. Timothy Donahue, a pancreatic cancer surgeon.The study centered on an immune system signaling molecule that impairs the proliferation of cancer cells in lab studies but tends to have the oppos...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - January 14, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
UCLA-led team refines ‘kick and kill’ strategy aimed at eliminating HIV-infected cells
In a study using mice, a UCLA-led team of researchers have improved upon a method they developed in 2017 that was designed to kill HIV-infected cells. The advance could move scientists a step closer to being able to reduce the amount of virus, or even eliminate it, from infected people who are dependent on lifesaving medications to keep the virus from multiplying and illness at bay.The strategy, described in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications, uses cells that are naturally produced by the immune system to kill infected cells that hide in the body, potentially eradicating them, said Dr. Jocelyn Kim, an assistan...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - January 11, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Tomato concentrate could help reduce chronic intestinal inflammation associated with HIV
New UCLA-led research in mice suggests that adding a certain type of tomato concentrate to the diet can reduce the intestinal inflammation that is associated with HIV. Left untreated, intestinal inflammation can accelerate arterial disease, which in turn can lead to heart attack and stroke.The findings provide clues to how the altered intestinal tract affects disease-causing inflammation in people with chronic HIV infection, suggesting that targeting the inflamed intestinal wall may be a novel way to prevent the systemic inflammation that persists even when antiviral therapy is effective in controlling a person ’s HIV.Th...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - January 11, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
How much do students learn when they double the speed of their class videos?
Recorded lectures have become a routine part of course instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, and college students often try to pack more learning into a shorter span by watching these recordings at double their normal speed or even faster. But does comprehension suffer as a result?Surprisingly, no — up to a point. Anew UCLA study shows that students retain information quite well when watching lectures at up to twice their actual speed. But once they exceed that limit, things begin to get a little blurry, said Alan Castel, the study ’s senior author and a UCLA professor of psychology.With 85% of UCLA students survey...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - January 11, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Ditching cigarettes for smokeless tobacco can help cut cardiovascular risks, study finds
Regular smokers are at heightened risk of developing cardiovascular disease, but crushing the butts in favor of a “smokeless” alternative like chewing tobacco, snuff or tobacco lozenges may go a long way toward bringing the danger down to a more normal level, a new UCLA-led study shows.The findings also indicate that the primary culprit in smokers ’ increased risk is not nicotine but other chemicals found in tobacco smoke. Both cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products contain large quantities of nicotine.The study,published today in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research, involved a team of researchers from UCLA...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - January 6, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
UCLA gene therapy gives new life to girl born with fatal immune disorder
In every visible way, Marley Gaskins is an average 12-year-old — she enjoys painting, playing online games like Roblox with her friends and taking ukulele lessons. But until recently, her life was far from normal.Marley was born with a one-in-a-million genetic disorder called leukocyte adhesion deficiency-1, or LAD-1, which cripples the immune system and results in recurring infections, coupled with slow wound healing.“She started getting what looked like ant bites on her skin when she turned 1,” said Marley’s mother, Tamara Hogue. “When she was 3, she got a really big skin abscess on her stomach that landed her ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 17, 2021 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
2021 reflections: In an amazing year of achievements, nothing topped the return to campus
As we approach the end of December, it ’s a natural time to look back at the year that was. In 2021, UCLA welcomed students, faculty, staff, alumni and visitors back to our home in Westwood, though of course it wasn’t exactly the way things had been.Different from pre-pandemic times: Masks remain present. Better (much better): UCLA officially opened the Black Bruin Resource Center.Even with all the changes, UCLA persisted as a force for public good, guided by our mission of teaching, research and service. In the past year, professors continued helping us better understand our world with their research, students kept ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 17, 2021 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Q & A: Dr. Thomas Rando on preventing age-related diseases and turning discoveries into cures
For Dr. Thomas Rando, the path to becoming a physician-scientist began with something that hedidn ’t learn in high school biology.After one class that touched on the connections between neurons and muscle fibers, Rando took it upon to himself to find all the information he could about how cells communicate through electrical signals.Soon, he began pursuing that interest at Harvard University, where he completed his undergraduate work, a doctorate in cell and developmental biology and his medical degree.Rando joined the neurology faculty at the Stanford University School of Medicine in 1995.There, he founded a clinic to t...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 10, 2021 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
A longer-lasting COVID vaccine? UCLA study points the way
FINDINGSResearchers at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have identified rare, naturally occurring T cells that are capable of targeting a protein found in SARS-CoV-2 and a range of other coronaviruses.The findings suggest that a component of this protein, called viral polymerase, could potentially be added to COVID-19 vaccines to create a longer-lasting immune response and increase protection against new variants of the virus.BACKGROUNDMost COVID-19 vaccines use part of the spike protein found on the surface of the virus to prompt the immune system to produce antibo...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 10, 2021 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Natural infection and vaccination together provide maximum protection against COVID variants
A combination of vaccination and naturally acquired infection appears to boost the production of maximally potent antibodies against the COVID-19 virus, new UCLA research finds.The findings, published today in the peer-reviewed journal mBio, raise the possibility that vaccine boosters may be equally effective in improving antibodies ’ ability to target multiple variants of the virus, including the delta variant, which is now the predominant strain, and the recently detected omicron variant. (The study was conducted prior to the emergence of delta and omicron, butDr. Otto Yang, the study ’s senior author, said the resul...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 7, 2021 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
UCLA in the time of AIDS: In the beginning
When Tom Gillman and his partner opened Hardware, a small clothing shop on Melrose Avenue in late-1970s Los Angeles, it was an instant hit. And having spent weeks at a time in New York ’s Fire Island Pines the previous six summers, their decision to open a seasonal shop there was a no-brainer.In an era of rampant homophobia, Fire Island Pines was a gay mecca — a summer sanctuary where young gay men reveled on the beaches, boardwalks and at parties, unconstrained by the need to hide their identities. The two California men signed a three-year lease and opened Hardware @ the Pines in 1979, and with a wellheeled clientele...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 2, 2021 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Exposing inequalities: The underlying connection between COVID and AIDS
It was mid-March 2020 and Brad Sears had a good indication of what was going to happen next. He had survived the AIDS epidemic four decades ago and based on that experience knew COVID-19 would quickly expose existing social inequalities.As a young man in the early 1980s and on a career track in law, Sears was well aware of the policy discussions around HIV/AIDS. Much of that discussion at the federal level characterized AIDS as a gay men ’s disease and thus not a priority for the Reagan-era United States. The impact of oppression and discrimination — whether measured by access to health care, poverty, mental health or ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 1, 2021 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Muted progress: 40 years after the start of the AIDS epidemic, HIV remains criminalized
In 1981, when UCLA physicians reported the first cases of what was described as “newly acquired immunodeficiency” — the disease now known as AIDS — contracting the virus was a virtual death sentence. Over the next four decades, research into the disease has made major advances that have thankfully made it possible to live a healthy life with HIV.However, as much as the medical treatment has progressed, laws that criminalize a person based on their HIV-positive status remain on the books across the United States and continue to be enforced in ways that discriminate, said Nathan Cisneros, the primary HIV criminalizat...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 1, 2021 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Understanding omicron, the new COVID-19 variant
Countries around the world are making preparations against omicron, a new variant of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Although it hasn ’t yet been detected in the United States (as of Nov. 29, 2021), health officials are once again cautioning the public about getting vaccinated, frequent testing and potentially stepping up tried-and-true measures to prevent transmission such as mask-wearing and hand-washing.We spoke with Shangxin Yang, a pathologist at UCLA Health, about the new variant and what everyone needs to know.How is the omicron variant different from the delta variant and others?It has a lot of mut...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - November 30, 2021 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
