by: Jose Avila Imagine a world set in the future where technology has advanced so far that it is capable of carrying out complicated medical procedures with extreme precision. Imagine this world has found the key to better cancer treatments that are much more effective and have few negative after-effects. Well, perhaps that future is […]
Targeting the Undruggable Proteome – one probe at a time
by: Brandon Chan Recent advances in utilizing chemoproteomic platforms for drug discovery poses an enormous potential for investigating new novel therapeutics. This greatly expands the scope of discovering promising treatments for diseases, particularly in the realm of targeting proteins for degradation. Much interest has been devoted to understanding this strategy, as the hallmark of many […]
At Home EEG: Comparing the Effectiveness of the Wireless EEG System
by: Amy Wise Every second of every day, every network of cells in our brain is sending signals at specific rhythms that allow us to transmit an enormous amount of information. Brain cells communicate with each other through electrical impulses. An electroencephalogram (EEG) is a test used to evaluate the electrical activity in the brain […]
The Heart of an Industry: The Long Term Impacts of Historical Gold Mining
by: Katherine Stenger In 1849, California was considered to be the land of gold; today, it is a region filled with more toxins than shiny metals, a direct consequence of mining activity from the California Gold Rush nearly 200 years ago. Community members in the Sierra Nevada foothills had been particularly concerned for decades, worried […]
Hacked – When Life-Saving Technology becomes a Life-Threatening Risk
by: Katherine Stenger The withholding of a pacemaker shock after cardiac arrest. The delivery of an extremely high dose of insulin. The prevention of access to medical files in an emergency room. All three of these potentially fatal situations can be created with simple hacks to extremely vulnerable medical devices. For a growing number of […]
Sleep Patterns: The Key to Predicting Alzheimer’s
by: Doris Ma Sleep patterns could be the key to predicting one’s likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD). A recent study published in JNeurosci shows that the accumulation of β-amyloid and tau proteins are associated with the disease which could be an early indicator of AD. Two proteins are thought to be the culprits of […]
Consumer Inertia in the Healthcare Industry
by: Ming Pei People often have great difficulty choosing the best healthcare plan and treatment because of the limited healthcare price transparency and the energy cost to find a better healthcare plan. Professor Ben Handel at UC Berkeley used the data from the large employer-sponsored insurance system and conducted research to find that consumer inertia […]
A Closer Look into the HIV Life Cycle: Hijacking the Host Cell
by: Sherry Wu Around every 9.5 minutes, one person in the United States alone is newly infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (Center of Disease Control and Prevention). This rapid rate at which HIV propagates is extremely alarming, hinting at the significant role that this virus plays on a larger scale. In fact globally, an […]
Mental Health Neglect and Associated Stigmas in University Settings
by: Alina Das Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, affecting over 300 million people across the globe. One in four people between the ages of 18 and 24 have a diagnosable mental illness (World Health Organization, 2018). Despite its immense contribution to the overall global burden of disease, mental illness remains largely circumvented […]
CasX enzymes comprise a distinct family of RNA-guided genome editors
by: Ken Hinh Advancements in genetic engineering have skyrocketed in the past seven years as the emerging genome editing tool—CRISPR-Cas9—has been utilized on bacteria, animals, and plants to edit DNA, which has the potential for curing a variety of genetic diseases. More specifically, the CRISPR system has the potential to cut DNA of any genome […]