Targeting expression of NRG1, which makes a protein important for brain development, may hold promise for treating at least some patients with the brain disorder. Like patients with schizophrenia, adult mice biogenetically-engineered to have higher NRG1 levels showed reduced activity of the brain messenger chemicals glutamate and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA). The mice also showed behaviors related to aspects of the…
We are thrilled to announce that ISG Postdoctoral Fellow, Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook has received the 2013 Chancellor’s Award for Postdoctoral Research. This award provides a cash prize to especially accomplished UCLA postdoctoral scholars recognized for their outstanding research. This prize was established in 1998 to recognize the important contributions that postdoctoral scholars make to UCLA’s research mission. All nominees, including the winners, will…
Joey Wetmore interned with the UCLA Multiple Sclerosis Achievement Center (MSAC) as part of his Human Biology & Society (B.S.) major. He is also a Public Health minor and plans on graduating in June of 2013. Read more here INTERN INSIGHTS: JOEY WETMORE Center for Community Learning (CCL): How did you land your internship? JW: An internship or research position…
The US adolescents who signed up for the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) in the 1970s were the smartest of the smart, with mathematical and verbal-reasoning skills within the top 1% of the population. Now, researchers at BGI (formerly the Beijing Genomics Institute) in Shenzhen, China, the largest gene-sequencing facility in the world, are searching for the quirks of…
An international team of genetic scientists has completed the genomic sequence of the Tibetan antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii), a native of the high mountain steppes and semi-desert areas of the Tibetan plateau. The scientists have decoded the genome of Tibetan antelope and studied the underlying genetic mechanism of high-altitude adaptations (it can live at elevations of 2.5 – 3.1 miles). “The…
[Plenary Lecture given on *May 27, 2012* at the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine Annual Conference, University of Waterloo] Monica Green, an Arizona State University professor known as “the foremost authority on medicine in the Middle Ages,” examines how her field has changed in recent years. In 2001, two genetic breakthroughs were made – the entire genomes for both plague…