Health Sciences Research Institute

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UC Awards $16.4 Million in Grants to Address Climate, Energy and Health

For the first time, UC Merced faculty members from each of the campus’s three schools have been chosen as principal investigators on some of the 21 exciting new projects that are being funded through UC’s Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives (MRPI).

In addition, UC Merced researchers are collaborating on 10 of the other projects.

Professor Contributes to New Report on Health and Climate Change that Paints Grim Picture

The 2022 report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change warns that global health is at the mercy of fossil fuels. An accompanying policy brief states that an estimated 32,000 people in the U.S. died due to air pollution in 2020 alone; 37% of those deaths were directly related to fossil fuels.

New Bioengineering Study Aims to Understand the Mechanisms of Inflammation

When it functions correctly, inflammation protects the body from infection and injury. But when it becomes chronic, inflammation is linked to health problems such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, arthritis and bowel diseases, including Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

Undergrad Stem Cell Training Positions Students For Careers After Graduation

Rising juniors this fall will have an unprecedented opportunity for stem cell research training that could lead directly to careers in stem cell science after graduation.

Nobile Named Pew Innovation Fund Investigator

UC Merced Professor Clarissa J. Nobile has been named a 2022 Innovation Fund investigator by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Nobile and University of Missouri Professor David G. Mendoza-Cózatl have formed one of six interdisciplinary teams chosen for the prestigious award.

The duo is combining expertise from Nobile’s research in microbial communities and Mendoza-Cózatl’s work in plant biology to study how plants and microbes interact in the context of iron uptake and utilization.

Mucus Molecules can Thwart Fungal Infection, Researchers Discover

An international team of researchers, including Professor Clarissa Nobile from UC Merced, has discovered which component in mucus prevents a fungus most humans carry from turning destructive.

This research lays the foundation for a new class of antifungal medicines.

‘Molecular LEGO’ Study Analyzes Building Blocks of Partially Disordered Protein

Bioengineering Professor Victor Muñoz and his lab have created a new way to solve some of the mysteries among an increasingly important class of proteins that don’t appear to have any specific structures but serve very important functions, including the complex genetic processes that separate high-order organisms from single-cell bacteria.

They call it “molecular LEGO,” pulling the proteins apart and rebuilding them, segment by segment.

Bioengineers Work on New Technology to Look Deep Inside Living Tissue and Tumors

Bioengineering Professor Changqing Li is building a high-resolution CT imaging scanner that will allow scientists to study and understand how oxygen plays a role in cancer therapy and stem cells growing in deep tissue such as bone marrow, and possibly develop new advances to culture stem cells outside the body and therapeutics to control tumor growth.

Baby Formula Shortages and COVID-19 Led to Risky Feeding Practices, Study Suggests

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the majority of parents struggling to find baby formula have resorted to dangerous feeding practices for their infants, which could negatively impact the health of their young children, according to a new study conducted by the UC Merced Lactation Attachment Technology and Child Health (LATCH) Lab in collaboration with UC Irvine and the

Bioengineer Invited to Join NIH Review Board

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have invited bioengineering Professor Eva De Alba Bastarrechea to serve as a member of the Macromolecular Structure and Function C Study Section within the Macromolecular Biophysics and Biological Chemistry Review Branch.