Mind & Body

Professor Katrina Hoyer ’s lab is helping UC Merced serve the San Joaquin Valley community through its studies of immune responses to Valley fever and other diseases.

Graduate students Susana Tejeda-Garibay and Nadia Miranda are exploring fungal and host immune interactions in Valley fever, and they have both earned prestigious research fellowships to further their work.

UC Merced's Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center (NCPC) and California State University, Stanislaus, are partnering on a large project as part of California Endgame's goal to end tobacco use in the state by 2035.

Research Week, the annual showcase of UC Merced’s important explorations into some of the world's most pressing challenges, kicks off Monday with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute’s symposium on climate.

SNRI researchers are at the forefront of innovative tools, technology and thinking about resilient and sustainable ecosystems, food systems and futures. Everyone is welcome to join the annual SNRI Research Symposium as members discuss new climate research and approaches for ag, energy, infrastructure and the environment.

The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) has elected founding faculty member Professor Kara McCloskey into its College of Fellows for outstanding contributions to biomaterials for cell and tissue engineering, and meritorious commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

She is the first faculty member from UC Merced to earn this honor.

Creating vaccines to train the immune system against parasites is particularly challenging. They are also highly specialized masters of immune evasion.

Some parasites can secrete proteins that bind to immune cell molecules, manipulating them for their survival purposes. Some have complex and fast life cycles so by the time the immune system has learned to recognize one form, it has already shifted to another.

Professor Xuecai Ge, a developmental neurobiologist, has received a CAREER award for research to gain insight into the molecular mechanisms that direct brain formation, and how errors in cell signaling lead to developmental disorders.

Ge is the 31st number researcher from UC Merced to earn a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

UC Merced has earned the distinction of ranking No. 20 among the world's Rising Young Universities, according to the just-released Nature Index 2021 Young Universities — the only U.S. institution to place in the top 25.

Among the leading 150 Young Universities, UC Merced ranks No. 80, and for Leading 50 Young Universities in Life Sciences, it ranks No. 43. These rankings are a jump from 2019, when the campus placed No. 92 among Top 175 Young Universities.

As a young child, Professor Michele Nishiguchi would dive off the couch and into the shag carpet reefs of her family home, mimicking the turns and leaps of intrepid explorer and environmentalist Jacques Cousteau. This love of the ocean would remain with Nishiguchi as she progressed through her academic career.

What happens if you take a person's happy face, put it on an angry-looking body and place that in front of a disgusting scene? What do people see? What emotion do people perceive when you mix and match these different cues?

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.”