In December of 2018, a handful of UC San Diego graduate students left their habitual classrooms, research labs and cool coastal breezes in faraway La Jolla and—brimming with enthusiasm and anticipation—stepped into the unknowns of the East Mesa Re-Entry Facility in South San Diego.
New Biological Sciences faculty member Cressida Madigan doesn’t mind if an ancient disease such as leprosy is not something we think about every day. Influenced by her art historian parents and diseases that changed the course of world history, Madigan works at the crossroads of microbiology, neurobiology…
Of the hundreds of coronaviruses known to exist, many are relatively harmless. Coronaviruses infect your nose, sinuses and upper throat but often result in nothing more than a common cold.
Biological Sciences Assistant Professor Justin Meyer oversees a laboratory that specializes in the evolution of viruses and the natural processes that hasten their spread. He grows viruses in petri dishes and studies them as they evolve in real time, every so often watching them mutate onto new species.
In today’s mercurial news cycle, the true value and impact of basic scientific research often gets lost in the shuffle.
For most of his life, UC San Diego freshman Ronald Moreno grew up homeless. Shuffling from San Bernardino to Los Angeles to San Diego’s City Heights community, Moreno and his younger brother spent their days in relatives’ houses… sometimes staying in garages… at times sleeping in cars.
At a Feb. 15 public lecture, Nobel Prize winner and former UC San Diego graduate student Venkatraman “Venki” Ramakrishnan grabbed the reins and took his audience on a deep dive into the frontiers of research and a life in science.
Long before he won the Nobel Prize for his contributions to cracking a major biological mystery, served as president of the Royal Society in London, published a popular science book and other noted accomplishments, Venkatraman “Venki” Ramakrishnan made a critical switch on his career path.
At the moment he was born, the odds already tilted against Gentry Patrick. The percentages said an African-American from South Central Los Angeles was not likely to become a tenured neuroscience professor at a major research universtiy …
As she navigated the pathways of a long and distinguished career in academia, Kimberley Phillips Boehm steadily became aware that one day she would need to step up and give back.