Cancer Disparities Are Target of $15 Million
Grant to UC San Diego, San Diego State University
San Diego State University (SDSU) and the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) are joining forces to help explain and eliminate cancer disparities. The five-year combined $15 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health will fund research, education and community outreach programs in the San Diego region with the goal of reducing differences in cancer incidence and deaths in the population. More

The Economics of Data Preservation:
International Blue Ribbon Task Force Issues Interim Report
on Economic Issues Brought on by “Data Deluge” in the Information Age
A blue ribbon task force, commissioned late last year to identify sustainable economic models to provide access to the ever-growing amount of digital information in the public interest, has issued its interim report.  The report calls the current situation urgent, and details systemic pitfalls in developing economic models for sustainable access to digital data. More

A Diet High in Vegetables, Fruit and Fiber May Cut Risk
of Breast Cancer Recurrence in Women Without Hot Flashes
A secondary analysis of a large, multicenter clinical trial has shown that a diet loaded with fruits, vegetables and fiber and somewhat lower in fat compared to standard federal dietary recommendations cuts the risk of recurrence in a subgroup of early-stage breast cancer survivors – women who didn’t have hot flashes – by approximately 31 percent. These patients typically have higher recurrence and lower survival rates than breast cancer patients who have hot flashes. The study team, led by researchers at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, along with six other sites, including the University of California, Davis, reported its results online December 15, 2008, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. More

UC San Diego Adds Power Storage
to Fuel Cell Project, Part of ‘Smart Energy Grid’
The University of California, San Diego plans to store power produced at night from a planned 2.8 megawatt "green" fuel cell and use the energy during peak-demand hours the following day when electricity rates are highest. Implementation of the advanced energy storage system at UC San Diego, one of the greenest universities in the nation, was made possible by the Nov. 21 approval by the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) of a measure designed to lower peak demands on the state’s electrical power grid. More

CIRM Tools & Technology Grants
Awarded to UC San Diego Stem Cell Researcher
A researcher from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine is among 23 awardees statewide to receive “Tools and Technology” grants from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).  The grant to Steven Dowdy, Ph.D., Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, for $925,200 brings the total of CIRM funding to the university to almost $34 million since grants were first awarded in late 2005. More

Why Do Some Bird Species Lay Only One Egg?
UC San Diego Study Offers Some Answers
A global study of the wide variation among birds in this trait, known as the “clutch size,” now provides biologists with some answers. The study, published in the current issue of the journal PLoS Biology, combined data on the clutch sizes of 5,290 species of birds with information on the biology and environment of each of these species. More

Preuss School Ranked 8th by U.S. News & World Report
in Annual Analysis of "America's Best High Schools"
The Preuss School at the University of California, San Diego has been named 8th among the nation’s “best high schools” by U.S. News & World Report in its annual survey of 21,000 public high schools. The new ranking is up from the school’s 10th place spot in the 2007 listing. More

Spreading the Joy Around
A laugh can be infectious. You don’t need a sophisticated study to tell you that. But does this happy contagion vanish as quickly as a smile? New research from James Fowler of UC San Diego and Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School shows that happiness spreads far and wide through a social network – traveling not just the well-known path from one person to another but even to people up to three degrees removed. More

Treating Sleep Apnea in Alzheimer’s Patients Helps Cognition
Continuous positive airway pressure treatment seems to improve cognitive functioning in patients with Alzheimer’s disease who also suffer from obstructive sleep apnea, according to the results of a randomized clinical trial conducted at UC San Diego. The study – led by Sonia Ancoli-Israel, a professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine and one of the nation’s preeminent experts in the field of sleep disorders and sleep research in aging populations – was published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. More

Expeditions Reveal Gulf of California’s
Deep Sea Secrets, As Well as Human Imprints
Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego returning from research expeditions in Mexico have captured unprecedented details of vibrant sea life and ecosystems in the Gulf of California, including documentations of new species and marine animals previously never seen alive. Yet the expeditions, which included surveys at unexplored depths, have revealed disturbing declines in sea-life populations and evidence that human impacts have stretched down deeply in the gulf. More

Researchers Identify Potential New Drug Target for Chronic Leukemia
Researchers at UC San Diego have discovered what could be a novel drug target for an often difficult-to-treat form of leukemia. The investigators have identified a unique “signature” or pattern of a specific family of enzymes in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, the most common form of adult leukemia. More