UCLA research could lead to a simple saliva test capable of diagnosing — at an early stage — diabetes and cancer, and perhaps neurological disorders and autoimmune diseases.
UCLA researchers have discovered that some scar-forming cells in the heart, known as fibroblasts, have the ability to become endothelial cells — the cells that form blood vessels. The finding could point the way toward a new strategy for treating people who have suffered a heart attack, because increasing the number of blood vessels in the heart boosts its ability to heal after injury.
A $2.5 million gift from Tadashi Yanai, the chairman, president and CEO of global apparel retailer Fast Retailing and founder of Uniqlo, will help transform UCLA’s Department of Asian Languages and Cultures into one of the world’s leading centers for the study of Japanese literature and culture.
For years, Walter Mancia searched for a chance to discover his talents. As the child of a single mother in rural Honduras, Mancia quit school at 13, in part because his family was unable to afford school materials for him and his three younger siblings. It seemed as though his formal education might be over.
By the time of her death in 1458 B.C., Egypt’s Pharaoh Hatshepsut had presided over her kingdom’s most peaceful and prosperous period in generations. Yet by 25 years later, much of the evidence of her success had been erased or reassigned to her male forbears.
From moving in to to Volunteer Day, all the news and photos about UCLA Welcome Week 2014.
UCLA Geography and Political Science student Logan Linnane isn’t having a typical summer.
The fourth-year student is spending his break in the communities that border the Ban Mai Nai Soi refugee camp in Northern Thailand, where a diverse group of international organizations provides aid to Karenni refugees from Myanmar.
The recipient of an Irving and Jean Stone Research Award, Linnane is conducting original research on the vocational environmental education programs made available to refugees by aid organizations. The field work is enabling him to explore the effectiveness of these environmental education programs from the perspectives of those they seek to serve.
This kind of opportunity is a key facet of a revolution unfolding within higher educational practice that Honors Program Assistant Vice Provost G. Jennifer Wilson characterizes as “teaching people to become the thing you want them to learn, rather than telling them what you want them to learn.”
While the UCLA College Honors Program distributes its summer stipends to 22 honors students throughout the College, Wilson says that students in the social sciences are particularly well prepared by their faculty to write and conduct compelling research proposals. They make up a large proportion of grantees each year. Seven students traveled abroad this year, including to Iran, China and Germany.
While Linnane’s research is connected to his Honors Thesis, he’s also thinking of the broader impact. He hopes that his work “will serve as a potential resource for environmental organizations as they continue to adjust and improve the curricula for programs that serve communities of displaced people.”
Professor Eric Sheppard, Linnane’s faculty advisor in the Geography Department, said the research his student is doing this summer is furthering Western scholars’ understanding of Myanmar and the topic of refugees in general.
Recipients must be part of the College Honors Program or a departmental honors program. Preparation is intense: students work closely with a faculty advisor and are required to gain Internal Review Board approval, a process most students don’t encounter until the graduate level.
But the hard work is worth it.
“It’s easy to sit on campus and dream about working in the developing world, but planning a project and living amongst the communities you strive to work with is truly the only way to even remotely understand what a career in development entails,” Linnane said.
Sheppard personally meets with his undergraduate researchers several times to help them develop appropriate research questions and methodologies.
“We talk about whether they need language skills and how to acquire these,” he said. “We discuss the country itself so they appreciate what they will be faced with. We set up a procedure for adjusting the research design if necessary. I also discuss with them basic travel preparations such as vaccinations, medicines to have with them, travel insurance, and what to do in an emergency.”
Honors Program research stipends are supported by four private donors. Despite this generous support, the need is growing as global knowledge becomes increasingly important.
“All undergraduates need to broaden their understanding of and perspective on the world if they are to become thoughtful world citizens,” Sheppard said. “The opportunity to do research on the ground, to be thrown into a situation where you work with locals and learn their views, is a vital opportunity that should be utilized more than it is.”
Yes, say Neil Garg’s students, who are back this year with nearly 100 new chemistry-related music videos.
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