Adapted from UCLA Health Newsroom article More than 700,000 Americans were hospitalized due to illnesses associated with the seasonal flu during the 2014–15 flu season, according to federal estimates. A radical new approach to vaccine development at UCLA may help lower that figure for future flu seasons. The scientists, including Dr. Ren Sun, a professor…
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“My college roommate was a philosopher,” so goes the story of Dr. Mark Cohen. Cohen’s isn’t one that involves an early onset of an existential crisis nor is it the typical hellish-roommate tale. On the contrary, engaging in philosophical discussions as an undergraduate helped spark Cohen’s interest in the human brain. A professor-in-residence at UCLA’s…
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In the animated Disney film Big Hero 6, the character Baymax is a loveable, squishy robot that resembles the Michelin Man and is programmed to be a sidekick and protector of the main character Hiro Hamada, a teen robotics engineer. Baymax is filled with air, which makes him exceptionally huggable and a hit with kids…
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In show business, it’s all about who you know. But for UCLA Mathematics Professor and IDRE-related faculty Joseph Teran, it’s all about snow. His research into the mechanics of ice crystals that fall from the atmosphere aided the Walt Disney Company in the creation of animated snow sequences in its Oscar-winning film “Frozen.” Teran has…
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Dr. Anastassia Alexandrova is living in a materials world; she is concerned with the study of new chemical materials through the use of computational design and multi-scale modeling. To Alexandrova, associate professor at UCLA’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the most interesting questions in science are related to the electronic structure and chemical bonding of…
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Getting inside a person’s head is no longer just the stuff of telekinetic comic book characters—the recently announced National Science Foundation’s Next Generation Networks for Neuroscience (NeuroNex) awards help to fund real scientists and their research into the interworkings of the brain. Through NSF funding, one of nine NeuroNex Technology Hubs will be established at…
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Five UCLA faculty members, including several IDRE collaborators, were honored with one of 17 Next Generation Networks for Neuroscience (NeuroNex) awards by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to help advance brain research. UCLA’s two-year, $1.83 million award helps fund the Neuronex Neurotechnology Hub, which will develop and share next-generation miniaturized in vivo sensing devices that…
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Creating a realistic rendering of the human body is hard enough. It would be modest to say Dr. Hong Zhou has turned this challenging task into one that is macroscopically more difficult: the creation of 3D structural studies of biological complexes as small as microbes. To put that in perspective, the human body is made…
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You might think of Professor Kendall Houk as the Shonda Rhimes of Organic Chemistry. Like Rhimes, the writer/producer known for her steady stream of hit television shows including “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal,” Houk is also known for his prolificness but in publication; he averages around 20 papers a year. Houk, who began teaching at UCLA…
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As for the phrase “as far as the eye can see,” it turns out to be actually not that much. This was proven during the 17th century by Robert Hooke, an English physicist, architect and polymath who used a hand-crafted microscope to detail his accounts of plants, insects, and objects. His microscope was so precise…
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