A.
Tracking Genes that Respond to Antidepressants
Narrator: This is Science Today. Taking advantage of the great strides made in the field of genetics, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have tracked genes that can predict an individual's response to antidepressants. Dr. Steven Hamilton, a psychiatrist and human geneticist, led the study.
Hamilton: We've taken advantage of a U.S. and NIH-funded clinical trial in which four thousand people were taking a single antidepressant in order to determine what is the best approach for dealing with depression and what we've been able to do is get DNA from about two thousand of these people, allowing us to analyze the DNA to determine whether there's some differences between people who are taking anti-depressants that can predict or influence whether they're going to respond to these drugs or not.
Narrator: Hamilton says this information can help patients suffering from depression receive the best treatment.
Hamilton: Hopefully, we can move this forward by having some sort of predictive test that says that the likelihood that you'll respond or not respond is higher.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
Methods Used to Understand Human Memory
Narrator: This is Science Today. When it comes to understanding the neuroscience of human memory, researchers predominantly use two non-invasive methods: EEG and FMRI. Dr. Michael Rugg, director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine, explains that an EEG involves putting electrodes on the side of a patient's head to record the brain's electrical activity. FMRI stands for functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Rugg: Which allows us to localize changes in the brain, which are associated with different kinds of mental function so that we can identify which regions of the brain appear to be most active during different kinds of mental tasks. These two methods are complimentary because with the EEG method, we get information about the time course of brain activity as someone, for example, remembers an event that they recently learned about and with FMRI, we get information about where in the rain this neuroactivity is occurring.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
One of the Nation's Leading Autism Research Centers
Narrator: This is Science Today. One of the nation's leading centers for autism research is the M.I.N.D. Institute at the University of California, Davis. Dr. David Amaral, research director of the M.I.N.D. Institute, says the center has grown over the years.
Amaral: We have a real team that ranges all the way from molecular biology, genetics up to immunology, up to brain science, up to even treatment research.
Narrator: Recently, the M.I.N.D. Institute, which stands for Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, launched the Autism Phenome Project. Amaral explains that the goal is to look at all aspects of a child's biology and behavior.
Amaral: We give them a soup-to-nuts workup, so that they have an enhanced medical work up, we do an MRI of their brain, look at immune system, we have geneticists that makes sure their genes are functioning properly. And what we hope is that by getting all this information on a large group of kids, things are going to start hanging together.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
The Enormous Potential in the Nanoelectronics Field
Narrator: This is Science Today. At the University of California, Riverside, researchers are working to develop what they call nanoplatforms for various applications – including the field of nanoelectronics and even cancer therapeutics. Chemical engineer Cenzan Ozkan says the implications are enormous.
Ozkan: First of all, you will be able to generate very high speed electronics and they will be useful for a variety of purposes and carbon nanotubes can be employed together if you connect them or hybridize them with bio molecules such as DNA. So, with the aid of nanotechnology or bio nanotechnology, we aim to incorporate these additional functionalities so that you get more overall speed or functional properties that only serves much better to society.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E. Understanding E.coli Strain O157:H7
Narrator: This is Science Today. The recent E.coli contamination of spinach made national headlines and has spurred food safety experts to better understand the outbreak and the science behind food safety. Dean Cliver, a professor of food safety at the University of California, Davis 's School of Veterinary Medicine, says there are hundreds of strains of E.coli, but the one involved in the deadly outbreak, called E.coli O157:H7 has some particularly bad traits.
Cliver: It can attach to the intestinal lining, it attacks the intestinal lining, it produces toxins that get taken up into the bloodstream and can cause problems with blood clotting, cause kidney malfunctions and so on. So, it's a particularly bad actor. The other thing about it that's unique is back when I was learning about E.coli that can cause human illness, most of it came from people. This one has a reservoir in ruminants, especially cattle and so the cattle aren't ill, they're apparently healthy, but the can shed E.coli O157:H7 in ways that will threaten human health.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
