Health

Seeking to combat a debilitating and sometimes fatal disease commonly found in the San Joaquin Valley, three regional institutions are uniting to improve the area's health.

The University of California, Merced, Health Sciences Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco Fresno Medical Education Program and the California State University, Fresno Central California Center for Health and Human Services are working together to determine research priorities and public service needs to address valley fever.

Chances are, sometime in your life, you’ll need an antibiotic.

But did you know that bacteria are evolving antibiotic resistance so quickly – and pharmaceutical companies are not inventing new antibiotics – that soon, there will not be any that are effective?

It has been four years since Mike Oliveira earned his bachelor’s degree in bioengineering at UC Merced, but the campus still feels like home to him.

The ties between the community and the University of California, Merced, will grow stronger thanks to a gift from longtime campus supporters Joel and Elizabeth Wallace.

The Wallaces have given UC Merced $575,000 to establish the Wallace-Dutra Amphitheater and the Yablokoff-Wallace Health Science Research Endowment, which will support the campus’s Community Research, Innovations and Solutions for the Health of the San Joaquin Valley Network (CRIS).

Just because it’s summertime doesn’t mean research at UC Merced comes to a halt.

Just the opposite.

This summer, professors and students at all levels are conducting a variety of research projects on campus, off campus, in the oceans and forests and around the world.

Up in Yosemite National Park, for example, nine undergraduate students are getting a summer experience to last them a lifetime, conducting research with faculty researchers from UC Merced, scientists from the U.S. Geologic Survey and from the park.

Graphic cigarette warning labels are better at discouraging smoking in young adults than text-only labels, according to research recently published by a UC Merced professor.

Like many faculty members, Professor Katrina Hoyer is busy running a lab, teaching and researching. This year, she adds another item to her to-do list – learning how public policy is implemented and how she can advocate for policy that affects her research.

In an effort to combat a debilitating disease commonly found in the region, UC Merced researchers are collaborating with area medical leaders to better understand valley fever.

An exacting nanosecond jolt of electricity can briefly open a cell’s wall, allowing for the delivery of drugs or DNA.