Health Sciences Research Institute

Physiology Professor Rudy M. Ortiz has been named this year's winner of the A. Clifford Barger Underrepresented Minority Mentorship Award by the American Physiological Society.

The UC Merced professor was recognized for his leadership, guidance and mentorship of underrepresented minority and diverse groups of students in the physiological sciences.

UC Merced's Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center has embarked on an innovative partnership with university researchers who can track an entire community’s health and habits with samples of human sewage.

The project aims to determine trends and levels of nicotine use in San Joaquin Valley communities through chemicals in wastewater. Collecting hard data on smoking and vaping can aid NCPC’s mission to help local public health agencies, community organizations and tobacco-control researchers give informed responses to the problem.

Faculty members at UC Merced are taking the lead on four Multicampus Research Program Initiatives (MRPI), working with colleagues around the University of California system to address challenges around labor and agriculture, active matter, Indigenous health and fusion energy.

Lockdowns. Social distancing. Shuttered schools and businesses. The COVID-19 pandemic and its sweeping disruptions set off a stampede of “what it’s doing to us” research, focused largely on schoolchildren. How were students’ academics affected? Their mental health? Their social development?

Left unexamined was whether the pandemic impacted the social cognition of preschool children — kids younger than 6 — whose social norms were upended by day care closures and families sheltered at home.

Solid and sharable research data must go hand in hand with collaboration and caring to tackle the health gaps that trouble minoritized and underserved populations in the San Joaquin Valley and elsewhere.

That was the main message from a national leader in minority health care disparities during a presentation Oct. 29 at UC Merced. Dr. Eliseo Pérez-Stable, director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), spoke to students and faculty at the invitation of the university’s Public Health Department.

Research on cell development has led not only to a more efficient way to map proteins in living cells but also tapped into the research capabilities of UC Merced undergraduate students and brought about a new learning opportunity that could shape their futures.

Researchers know a protein’s function is intimately tied to its location in a cell. By mapping its location, they can better understand how its function — and the cell’s biology — changes over time.

Scientists, policymakers and concerned community members will gather at UC Merced this week to compare notes and chart new directions to improve air quality and public health in the San Joaquin Valley.

Black and Hispanic faculty members seeking promotion at research universities face career-damaging biases, with their scholarly production judged more harshly than that of their peers, according to a groundbreaking initiative co-led by UC Merced that aims to uncover the roots of these biases and develop strategies for change.

Stem cells hold vast potential to help people live healthier lives. UC Merced researchers have delved into expanded uses of these cells, which can be used to create any cell in the body, to replace damaged cardiac tissue and grow new blood vessels, among other uses.

A $5.4 million grant from one of the world's largest institutions dedicated to regenerative medicine will fund a new facility to support research in vascular models and human stem cells.

Researchers at UC Merced used fruit flies to uncover a cellular process common to many organisms that could dramatically impact the understanding of cancer and aging.