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A.
Research Center for Biodefense and Infectious Disease Study
Narrator: This is Science Today. The University of California , Santa Barbara will be home to one of ten research centers in the country funded by the National Institutes of Health, dedicated to countering threats from bioterrorism agents and infectious disease. Microbiologist Peggy Cotter, who will serve as a project director for the center, says the goal is to get a basic understanding of how certain bacteria cause disease.
Cotter: Our aspect is really basic science – understanding of the potential pathogens so that we can potentially develop vaccines or therapeutics that will prevent us from getting sick if we get exposed or at least come up with rapid treatments if it really materializes.
Narrator: Bioterrorism agents to be studied include anthrax and botulism, but Cotter says they'll also study naturally-occurring infectious diseases, such as West Nile virus and hantavirus.
Cotter: It's not strictly focused on biodefense, but also on these emerging infectious diseases that are sort of developing and moving around the world, which they can do much more easily now with world travel.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
An Online Certification Program in Pain Management for Health Care Providers
Narrator: This is Science Today. For the first time, the University of California , San Francisco is offering an online certification program for healthcare providers. Dr. Pamela Pierce Palmer, director of the UCSF Pain Management Center , says the online pain management course will be a resource for doctors, nurses, dentists – any provider who interacts with people in pain.
Palmer: If you're a doctor and you want to become a pain management specialist, you can perform a fellowship. So, we're not trying to take the place of the fellowship programs. But if you're a nurse, for example, there's no place you can go to and really have a yearlong, comprehensive, intensive training in pain management that's online.
Narrator: Health care providers don't have to spend more than 8 to 10 hours per week on the course. Palmer says UCSF joined the University of Sydney and the University of Edinborough in this international program.
Palmer: So any of the health care providers from North America would come to our program. Any health care providers from Europe would go to the Edinborough program and then the rest of the world would go to Sydney .
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Researchers Partnering with a Satellite Imagery Company May Change Science
Narrator: This is Science Today. A unique partnership between the University of California , Santa Barbara and a private satellite imagery company called Terra Image USA , will have a major impact on research that utilizes satellite imagery. David Siegel directs the campus' Institute for Computational Earth System Science, which is the lead university institute involved in the partnership.
Siegel: The focus of the group is really on Earth world remote sensing and how to use those data sets to understand how the Earth system is changing over time. There are people who are interested in using it to look at land cover changes; to look at agriculture distributions; to look at gas fluxes from land; snow; city growth; population modeling; hydrological modeling; storm run-off – there's hundreds of hundreds of applications.
Narrator: Siegel says access to such high-resolution, commercial satellite imagery was too exorbitant for researchers.
Siegel: Traditionally, academic users, especially in the U.S. , have had no access to this data. And this is one of these great opportunities that we can change the face of science.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
The Origin of Adult Stem Cell Therapy
Narrator: This is Science Today. The concept of using adult stem cells for therapeutics came from bone marrow transplants. Judith Gasson, co-director of UCLA's Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine, explains.
Gasson: In years past, the bone marrow, which is inside of our bones, was actually harvested or pulled out of the bones using a syringe and then could either be given back to the same patients or to another patient after treatment with high dose chemotherapy and/or radiation to hopefully destroy the cancer cells in that patient's body. But the patient needs to have their bone marrow to produce all of the cells in the blood. And so that was the reason to give back the bone marrow after the treatment ended.
Narrator: Then, growth factors that regulate the production of bone marrow cells were isolated and when given to the patient, blood forming stem cells in the bone marrow would flow throughout the patient's blood; making it possible to harvest these stem cells from the peripheral blood, rather than pulling it out of the bones with a syringe.
Gasson: So these types of stem cell transplants are being done here and around the world for cancer patients with disorders such as leukemia.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Research Provides Potential Insight into Late Life Depression
Narrator: This is Science Today. Contrary to a popular stereotype that old age is a depressing time, researchers looking into emotion and aging have found evidence that as people get older, they experience less negative emotions in their lifestyle. Cognitive psychologist, Mara Mather of the University of California , Santa Cruz , led the memory research study.
Mather: It looks like this is actually because they get better at regulating emotion, they focus more on regulating emotion than younger adults do. They say they do on surveys and they actually appear to be better at regulating emotions.
Narrator: Mather says the research provides potential insight into late life depression, especially vascular depression, which includes symptoms of cognitive decline.
Mather: This type of research might be able to answer why that is happening. That if you're no longer able to do sort of self-directed control over your own thoughts and what you're really paying attention to, that you can no longer regulate your emotions as well and that might be something that contributes to developing depression later in life.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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