Monday 21 July 2025
UC Merced has been awarded a $3.8 million grant to establish the UC Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center (NCPC), positioning UC Merced and the San Joaquin Valley region as a leading center for the study of public health and policy matters related to tobacco and marijuana.
“Awarding of this center grant to UC Merced and its partners is a clear sign of the commitment, expertise and leadership of our faculty in addressing issues critical to both the Valley and the world,” Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development Sam Traina said.
UC Merced’s efforts to make science education more inclusive were recently given a huge boost after the campus was awarded its first Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) grant, an impressive mark of distinction that reflects the strong upward trajectory of the campus’s research and teaching efforts.
New research published today in the Nature Partner journal npj Systems Biology and Applications establishes how genome-wide data in combination with systems biology analyses can identify master regulators and new drug targets in therapy-resistant cancers.
The new discovery explains how cancer controls specific effector networks — findings with important implications for the future of cancer therapy.
In 1998, scientists studying rheumatoid arthritis observed a population of immune cells that weren’t behaving the way they were supposed to. Immunologists noted the strange phenomenon, but decided not to pursue the subject further, and the cells were soon forgotten.
But interest in these cells has swelled over the past few years as they’ve been found in patients with chronic viral infections and cancer.
As new director of the Center for the Humanities, Professor Mario Sifuentez ’ sights are set on a fuller understanding of rural communities and how best to help them.
Biology Professor Anna Beaudin was named a member of the 2018 class of Pew Biomedical Scholars today, one of 22 early-career researchers nationwide to receive this year’s prestigious award.
“I am thrilled and humbled to be joining such an accomplished and talented group of scientists as a 2018 Pew Biomedical Scholar,” Beaudin said. “Receiving this award will give my lab the opportunity to dig deeper into how early life events shape immunity across the lifespan and contribute to autoimmune disease susceptibility.”
Neurons keep time. These brain cells – which are responsible for the brain’s “heavy lifting,” from information processing to memory formation – seem to "know" how long they’ve been exposed to sensory stimulation. Now, scientists are starting to understand how they do this.
In creating scholarships to help future generations of Bobcats succeed, UC Merced staff members and alumnae Monique de Villa (’16) and Danielle Armedilla (’12) are cementing the legacy they are leaving for campus.
De Villa and Armedilla were honored for their generous contributions at last month’s scholarship signing ceremony on Bobcat Day — a thank-you tradition that began a few years ago.
The odds of Tomanik’e Banks graduating from college were slim — only slightly lower than the odds she’d go to college at all.
But Banks had one thing going for her that many others don’t. Determination.
When Banks crosses the commencement stage May 12, she’ll be one of only about 3 percent of foster youth to graduate from college.
