Infectious Diseases

A representative sample survey of Fresno voters, now in its second year, is giving area policymakers insight into the opinions and concerns of the people they represent.

The UC Merced Community and Labor Center partnered with the Fresno County Civic Engagement Table to conduct the Fresno Speaks survey and fill a critical need to inform elected officials and the people of the Central Valley about public opinions on major issues. The survey findings are already being used to deepen democratic participation in Fresno.

Human waste isn’t a topic most people want to talk about.

But environmental systems Professor Rebecca Ryals embraces the subject, especially when it comes to mitigating climate change, improving public health and creating sustainable food systems.

An HIV-inhibiting silk film designed to advance prevention and help end the AIDS epidemic in countries in Africa, developed by UC Merced Professor Patti LiWang, has met recent success at the California National Primate Research Center at UC Davis.

“They show complete protection,” LiWang said. “The films worked perfectly on the macaques at Davis.”

The over the counter, “safe,” organic-compliant insecticides people purchase at home-improvement stores could be causing a problem that goes far beyond the vegetable garden or farm field — antibiotic resistance.

With COVID-19 protections lifting, many people are eager to travel again. Among them is graduate student Elena Bischak, who is planning multiple trips to Haiti in the coming months to study improving sanitation and human waste processing in the Caribbean country.

A UC Merced professor is collaborating with faculty from UCLA and the University of Illinois in a study that aims to find how people might best deal with COVID-19 at home.

As news headlines continue to focus on seeing the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, the coronavirus continues to spread across the globe. As of May 18, California has recorded more than 3.6 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, resulting in over 61,500 deaths, according to the California Department of Public Health.

California is getting a closer look at exactly how workers in high-risk industries across the state have borne the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic. For the first time, UC Merced's Community and Labor Center (CLC) has analyzed the increase in the number of pandemic-era deaths of working-age people.

Immunology Professor Jennifer Manilay and bioengineering Professor Joel Spencer are using a new grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to expand a project they’ve been working on for the past two years — delving into the immune systems of living mice to see how B-cells develop under different circumstances.

Bioengineering Professor Arvind Gopinath received a CAREER award for his research that seeks to understand how living biological materials such as bacterial swarms and fungal biofilms colonize surfaces, respond to physical features of their environments and cause infection.

He is the 25th researcher from UC Merced to earn this recognition from the National Science Foundation (NSF).