CREST Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines

Merced area fourth- and fifth-grade girls and their mothers recently participated in hands-on scientific projects in a UC Merced classroom laboratory that was transformed for one day into an exciting experimental space.

UC Merced’s NSF-funded CREST Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines (CCBM) hosted the event as part of the seven-week Mother Daughter Science Camp, organized by the Merced branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW).

Professor Shahar Sukenik has been a faculty member for only 5 1/2 years, but he has already built an impressive resume, becoming a leader in his research field, an innovator and an exceptional communicator.

Those qualities helped him become UC Merced’s first recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Sloan Research Fellowship.

Department of Physics Professor Kinjal Dasbiswas has received a CAREER award for his work on the theory and modeling of shape-changing active solids.

He is the 38th researcher from UC Merced to earn this award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Solar films developed by a graduate student in the Department of Physics at UC Merced while on an internship at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) not only survived 10 months in space with minimal degradation, but the little damage they did incur was more than 90 percent reversible.

It's time for the campus and the community to celebrate UC Merced’s high-level research during Research Week, March 6 through 10.

The annual research showcase, hosted by the Office of Research and Economic Development, kicks off with a Health Sciences Research Institute (HSRI) event titled “Climate, Environment and Health: Impacting the San Joaquin Valley and Beyond.”

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has given Professor Stephanie Woo the CAREER award to help her delve into congenital birth defects by looking at the embryonic cells of zebrafish.

Woo is the 32^nd researcher from UC Merced to earn a CAREER award.

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.

After two years, the National Science Foundation-funded CREST STEM Camp returned to in-person activities on campus this summer, giving 26 middle school students from around the Central Valley and beyond exposure to exciting STEM topics and the abundant opportunities that exist in STEM fields.

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.

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.