News & Media

Cells Under Stress

January 11, 2019

UCSB researchers create a device to help understand how cells communicate to form tissues and maintain integrity under loading.

Time-lapse of epithelial cells moving in response to shear force

As cells divide to form tissues and organs in multicell organisms, they move to where they belong, informed by a series of cues that scientists have yet to observe or fully understand.

The UCSB CurrentBeth Pruitt

Smartphone, M.D.

September 21, 2018

In a potential game changer for the health care industry, a new cell phone app and lab kit now allow a smartphone to identify bacteria from patients anywhere in the world. With the new app, doctors will be able to diagnose diseases and prescribe the appropriate antibiotic within a one-hour office visit, meaning faster recovery — and lower treatment costs — for patients.

A Biophysical ‘Smoking Gun’

July 12, 2017

A Biophysical ‘Smoking Gun’

Scientists studying Alzheimer’s disease begin to unravel how the protein tau transitions from soluble liquid to solid fibrous tangle

While much about Alzheimer’s disease remains a mystery, scientists do know that part of the disease’s progression involves a normal protein called tau, aggregating to form ropelike inclusions within brain cells that eventually strangle the neurons. Yet how this protein transitions from its soluble liquid state to solid fibers has remained unknown — until now.

The UC Santa Barbara Current

Why Antibiotics Fail

June 06, 2017

Why Antibiotics Fail

UCSB biologists correct a flaw in the way bacterial susceptibility to these drugs is tested

When a patient is prescribed the wrong antibiotic to treat a bacterial infection, it’s not necessarily the physician who is at fault. The current antibiotic assay — standardized in 1961 by the World Health Organization and used worldwide — is potentially flawed.

The UC Santa Barbara Current

The Elevator Pitch Perfected

April 24, 2017

When the standing-room-only crowd at UC Santa Barbara’s 5th annual Grad Slam quieted, Leah Foltz began her three-minute presentation about personalized medicine.

But hers wasn’t the usual academic, sometimes dry, explanation.

Foltz, a UCSB graduate student in biomolecular science and engineering, delivered an engaging summary of recent strides in stem cell research and how her lab uses this biological material to study blinding diseases. Her research explores whether scientists will one day be able to use someone’s own cells to cure their blindness.

The Elevator Pitch Perfected

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