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Pew Celebrates 40 Years of Support for Innovative Biomedical Research

March 27, 2025
Note: This article has been republished in part.The full article is available online . When David Mendoza-Cózatl, a 2006 Pew Latin American fellow in the biomedical sciences, got an email soliciting applications for the Pew Innovation Fund, he sprang into action. The program provides alumni from...

Thymus Research Could Unlock Immune System Improvements

March 12, 2025
A multimillion-dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health will fund research at UC Merced that could help cancer patients and others live longer, healthier lives. The $3.5 million, five-year grant will fund bioengineering Professor Joel Spencer's lab, which is investigating the thymus, a...

Center Engages Campus, Community with Africa and its Diaspora

February 27, 2025
This story is part of a series for Black History Month. Read more stories highlighting Black excellence at UC Merced. The brutal deaths of African Americans George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and others at the hands of police officers five years ago catalyzed for Black communities to unite globally and...

Physiological Society Recognizes Rudy Ortiz for Mentoring Underrepresented Students

February 24, 2025
Physiology Professor Rudy M. Ortiz has been named this year's winner of the A. Clifford Barger Underrepresented Minority Mentorship Award by the American Physiological Society. The UC Merced professor was recognized for his leadership, guidance and mentorship of underrepresented minority and...

Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center Enlists Wastewater Tests in Fight Against Smoking

February 10, 2025
UC Merced's Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center has embarked on an innovative partnership with university researchers who can track an entire community’s health and habits with samples of human sewage. The project aims to determine trends and levels of nicotine use in San Joaquin Valley...

UC Awards Support Tackling Big Questions in Health, Physics, Agriculture and Climate

February 5, 2025
Faculty members at UC Merced are taking the lead on four Multicampus Research Program Initiatives (MRPI), working with colleagues around the University of California system to address challenges around labor and agriculture, active matter, Indigenous health and fusion energy. “The MRPI program...

COVID Lockdown Disrupted Preschoolers’ Social Skills, Trailblazing Research Shows

January 29, 2025
Lockdowns. Social distancing. Shuttered schools and businesses. The COVID-19 pandemic and its sweeping disruptions set off a stampede of “what it’s doing to us” research, focused largely on schoolchildren. How were students’ academics affected? Their mental health? Their social development? Left...