A team of researchers from the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has been awarded two research grants totaling $6 million from the National Institutes of Health to identify new ways to treat pancreatic cancer.

As an assistant professor of neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine, Dr. Ranmal Samarasinghe’sresearch focuses on how neurons connect to form neural circuits in the brain and how circuit dysfunction is associated with diseases like epilepsy and autism. Prior to becoming a UCLA faculty member and opening his own lab, Samarasinghe trained in the lab of UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center member Bennett Novitch, Ph.D.

Researchers applied a new approach pioneered at UCLA to predict which methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, infections will fail to respond to antibiotic treatment. By focusing on epigenetics — changes to gene expression that can’t be detected by standard DNA sequencing — the study examined how the immune system recognizes dangerous superbugs and works with antibiotics to clear them.

According to an examination of posts on Reddit, the pandemic has had a significant effect on the management of kidney stone disease. Researchers from the department of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA used computational analysis and other techniques to explore unfiltered discussions related to kidney stones in real time on the website’s discussion forums.

UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have uncovered a potential new way to target pancreatic tumors that express high intratumoral interferon signaling (IFN). The team found that high type I IFN signaling is present in a subset of pancreatic tumors and it triggers a decrease in the level of NAD and NADH in pancreatic cancer cells, which are vital cofactors in critical metabolic processes. 

A study led by researchers at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found that magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, frequently underestimates the size of prostate tumors, potentially leading to undertreatment. 

The study authors found that such underestimation occurs most often when the MRI-measured tumor size is small and the PI-RADS score, which is used to classify lesions in prostate MRI analysis, is low. 

Parkinson’s disease affects about 2% of people older than 60, but it remains difficult to diagnose.

A UCLA-led study may help explain how COVID-19 increases the risk for stroke. Scientists made the finding by running fluid spiked with a COVID-19–like protein through a 3D-printed model of the arteries of a patient who had suffered a stroke. 

Although COVID-19 was first identified by its severe respiratory symptoms, the virus has caused strokes in young people who had no known risk factors. But little is known about how the virus increases the risk for stroke. 

The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $773,763 grant to UCLA physician-scientist Dr. Donald Kohn to bring a new, potentially more affordable and efficient gene therapy for sickle cell disease to clinical trial.

UCLA researchers have identified a potential diagnostic marker that could help predict how likely someone with cervical cancer is to respond to the standard treatment of chemotherapy and radiation. 

Older people who undergo emergency surgeries on their operating surgeon’s birthday may be more likely to die within a month than patients who go through similar procedures on other days, a new UCLA-led study suggests.

UCLA researchers are the first to create a version of COVID-19 in mice that shows how the disease damages organs other than the lungs. Using their model, the scientists discovered that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can shut down energy production in cells of the heart, kidneys, spleen and other organs. 

We are in what scientists are calling a “third wave” of infections, as the number of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations surge once again in California and across the U.S.

UCLA Health recently joined 100 of the nation's top health care systems, representing thousands of hospitals in communications around the U.S., with an urgent plea for all Americans: Every Mask Up. (See video below.)

Two scientists at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have received awards from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to develop therapies for white matter stroke and the immune system deficiency X-linked Agammaglobulinemia (XLA).

A UCLA-led review of nine years of social media posts with the hashtag #BCSM suggests that Twitter can be a useful resource not only for patients, but also for physicians and researchers.

The hashtag — an initialism for “breast cancer social media” — first appeared on Twitter in 2011. Created by two cancer survivors, it was used to curate a weekly informational chat for people with breast cancer. Dr. Deanna Attai became one of the group’s moderators a few weeks later.

UCLA researchers have identified a compound that can reproduce the effect of exercise in muscle cells in mice. The findings are published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine.

Dr. Antoni Ribas, a world-renowned physician–scientist and professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, has been named to the National Academy of Medicine, one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine.

New members are elected by their peers, and selection to the academy honors individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service and have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care and public health.

Researchers at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have found that a drug that activates the body’s natural defenses by behaving like a virus may also make certain stealthy melanoma tumors visible to the immune system, allowing them to be better targeted by immunotherapy.

The percentage of low- and middle-income families with children that had burdensome out-of-pocket health care costs fell following the 2014 implementation of the health insurance marketplaces and Medicaid expansion provisions of the Affordable Care Act, known widely as Obamacare, according to a new study by Lauren Wisk, an assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and colleagues.

The wildfires raging throughout California and Oregon have caused great concern about air quality and the safety of being outdoors. And dealing with the public health implications of the fires is further complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic.