The National Academy of Inventors announced today the election of 168 new fellows, including Walter Leal, distinguished professor, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology.
In the latest episode of The Stem Cell Podcast, Assistant Professor Celina Juliano discusses her research on Hydra, an aquatic animal with amazing regenerative capabilities.
Kaiming Tan, an undergraduate working with Professor Walter Leal at the UC Davis Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, recently put a home-brewed clove repellent to the test against DEET. Their paper was just published in PLOS One.
Knots are a part of nature. From pocketed headphones to carelessly packed garden hoses, they find ways to manifest in strings and loops. This isn’t just a truth of mathematics; it’s a truth of biology. In fact, DNA molecules can also get tied into knots.
UC Davis researchers have been awarded $1.5 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the first part of a project to develop a novel approach to deliver genome editing machinery to genes responsible for a rare form of familial cancer.
The Asian citrus psyllid is the bogeyman of the citrus industry. Its appearance in fields is a dark harbinger for farmers, for carried within this insect is the bacteria Candidatus Liberibacter, the cause of citrus greening disease. In a study published in Scientific Reports, UC Davis researchers report that an acetic acid-based, slow-release trap is capable of capturing Asian citrus psyllids even when the insect populations are low.
In order to generate energy, our bodies transfer electrons from food—sugars, fats and proteins—to molecular oxygen, which allows our cells to respire and function. Performed by the mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC), this process creates ATP, the “molecular currency” for energy in the cell. In a Molecular Cell study, Assistant Professor James Letts, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and colleagues reveal further nuances of the ETC.
In a new study appearing in Nature Cell Biology, UC Davis researchers found that tau molecules can congregate together in a novel, reversible way, which appears to be distinct from the irreversible tangle formation observed in neurodegenerative diseases.
Thanks to a roughly 5-year, $850,000 CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation, Assistant Professor Gerald Quon will develop next-generation computational tools that will allow researchers to better understand and analyze single-cell genomic data.
While we know certain plant-derived compounds act as insect repellents, much of the molecular science behind insect olfaction remains a mystery. In a study published in iScience, UC Davis researchers exposed further layers of complexity in the mosquito olfactory system.
