Aldrin Gomes, a professor in the Departments of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, and Physiology and Membrane Biology, can still recall the reality he faced when he came to the United States to conduct postdoctoral research. Growing up in Trinidad and Tobago, Gomes was accustomed to the cultural diversity of the island. But shortly after stepping on American soil, he started experiencing things he didn’t understand.
A team of scientists from UC Davis and Rice University are starting small as they begin to figure out how to build an artificial brain from the bottom up.
Celina Juliano, an associate professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Jacob Robinson of Rice University’s Brown School of Engineering have won a $1 million Keck Foundation grant to advance the team’s synthetic neurobiology effort to define the connections between neurons and muscles that drive programmed behaviors in living animals.
Three UC Davis researchers, including Assistant Professor James Letts, will receive funding from the Early Career Research Program of the U.S. Department of Energy. They are among 83 researchers at U.S. universities and national laboratories funded by the program this year. The awards are of $150,000 for summer salary and research expenses each year and are intended to last for five years.
The laboratory of Richard McKenney, an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology has published new research on the role of the KIF1A motor protein in degenerative disorders in children.
Jodi Nunnari, a distinguished professor and chair in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, is one of four UC Davis professors who have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Founded in 1780 by John Adams, John Hancock and others, the academy honors excellence and includes leaders from every field of human endeavor including scientists, artists, performers, poets and political leaders.
Nitzan Shabek, an assistant professor in the Department of Plant Biology, has received a $837,000 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. The five-year award will support Shabek’s research into elucidating the sensing mechanism of an emerging and unique class of plant hormones. Additionally, as an integral part of the research activities, this project will create a unique teaching platform and outreach program to encourage young students to pursue knowledge in STEM.
Plants can perceive and react to light across a wide spectrum. New research from Prof. Nitzan Shabek’s laboratory in the Department of Plant Biology, College of Biological Sciences shows how plants can respond to blue light in particular.
“Plants can see much better than we can,” Shabek said.
UC Davis Virologist Samuel L. Díaz-Muñoz, an assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, spoke with KCRA 3 in an interview late last year about the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines being hailed as "game-changers" by the medical community.
In a study appearing in Cell Host & Microbe, UC Davis plant biologists highlight key proteins that allow pathogens to target and manipulate the molecular machinery responsible for a host plant's autophagy process.
Keith Fraga won a Office of Science Graduate Student Research award, which gives Ph.D. students the opportunity to conduct research at a DOE national laboratory. Mary-Francis LaPorte won the DOE’s Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, which helps train next-generation leaders in computational science.
