School of Natural Sciences

Chemistry Professor Jason Hein and his students make a lot of compounds in the lab.

They also make a lot of chemical waste.

But Hein found a way to clean up the waste and reuse it, saving money and helping the environment at the same time.

Professor Fabian Filipp is trying to put up roadblocks. But instead of stopping cars, he's trying to keep cancers from growing.

Filipp, a systems biology professor who started at UC Merced this fall, studies the metabolic cycle of melanoma, which is the leading cause of death from skin cancers.

Professor Mónica Medina started out as the only marine biologist in a National Science Foundation workshop last year, but she ended up with a group of new partners and an opinion piece in the prestigious journal Science that’s being released today.

Research is the hallmark of the University of California, which develops more patents than any other university in the nation. And as the system’s newest campus, UC Merced is continuing to conduct cutting-edge research.

Staph, e-coli, meningitis, MRSA and botulism are just a few of the thousands of bacterial infections that plague people all over the world.

For example, almost 23,300 people in the United States were sickened by food-borne bacterial illnesses in 2008, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

MERCED, Calif. — A $1.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation will support a five-year investigation by University of California, Merced, researchers into environmental changes in marine lakes, including why some species adapt while others go extinct.

The grant also is helping spread UC Merced’s research and reputation across the Pacific.

“This research is an outstanding example of our faculty efforts to understand the links between the physical and the biological world,” said Sam Traina, UC Merced’s vice chancellor for research.

Shrubs blooming in a specific area of Africa might hold the answers to feeding millions of people on that continent, and possibly others.

The University of California, Merced, begins its eighth academic year today with record enrollment of approximately 5,600 students, a 23 percent increase in graduate-student enrollment and 26 newly hired faculty members to teach and conduct advanced research that may someday change the world.

From the caves of Belize to laboratories in Japan, UC Merced faculty members and students are abroad conducting research this summer across the globe.

Portia Mira considers herself lucky. Although the UC Merced senior was taken from her parents and spent five years in foster care, she said she and her sister are much better off than most.