A. Researchers Discover Insulin Heals Wounds
Narrator: This is Science Today. New research has found that applying insulin directly to skin wounds significantly sped up wound healing. Insulin is a hormone known primarily for regulating sugar levels in the blood, so study leader Manuela Martins-Green, a professor of cell biology at the University of California, Riverside says this research has potential for diabetics.
Martins-Green: It could have an effect on the physiology because if some of this insulin is absorbed to the body, then of course it's going to have an effect on their physiology. We really don't know how it's working precisely. We know it's affecting this type of cell and that type of cell, but we really haven't put it together and that's what we're doing now.
Narrator: Martins-Green cautions this research is experimental.
Martins-Green: We have only tried it in animals and so it would be great if we could try it in people with very controlled protocols, but this is not something that someone could just decide to do on their own.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
A 21st Century Science Server is Launched
Narrator: This is Science Today. Scientists and engineers at the University of California , San Diego have launched what may be the first science server of the 21 st Century. It's called Cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Marine Microbial Research and Analysis, or CAMERA for short.
Smarr: We're going live to the world with one of the largest genomic and metagenomic data sets ever released – bringing us, for the first time, a picture of the enormous biodiversity, genetically, that exists in the world's oceans.
Narrator: Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, or Calit2, where CAMERA resides, says this is the way cyberinfrastrucutre is going to develop for all fields of science.
Smarr: You essentially have this 512 processor, supercomputer, available to work on your data in your laboratory wherever you are in the world.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
The Emerging Field of Nutritional Genomics
Narrator: This is Science Today. One of the exciting spin-offs of the Human Genome Project is a field called nutritional genomics. It's the study of how diets and genetics interact in health and disease.
Rodriguez: It looks at the whole human genome in response to nutrition.
Narrator: Ray Rodriguez, a professor of molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Davis, directs the campus' Center of Excellence in Nutritional Genomics.
Rodriguez: A lot of scientists are talking about the interaction between diet and our genes and environment. And probably the most important component or factor of environment for humans is diet.
Narrator: Rodriquez is leading an international consortium of researchers to better understand this link.
Rodriguez: We're trying to look for those diet-gene interactions that are responsible for increasing our risks for certain diseases or alternatively, for those diet-gene interactions that promote health.
Narrator: An early priority is to set up a nutritional database where researchers around the world can file their results. For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
How Scientists Monitor the Quality & Safety of Fresh Produce
Narrator: This is Science Today. University of California-based scientists and specialists are working with California growers, processors and livestock producers to figure out just how E.coli contamination occurs in agricultural systems. The goal is to prevent the deadly outbreak that occurred in spinach last year. Postharvest specialist Trevor Suslow of the University of California , Davis , has been working with farm advisors for the past five years on E.coli- related projects, looking at different components of postharvest quality and safety for fresh fruits and vegetables.
Suslow: We initiated a three-year study looking at a little over twenty different on-farm reservoirs up and down the Salinas Valley and really characterizing them for the kinds of microbial water quality indicators and then suggest both sampling methodology and sampling frequency and how that related to pathogen levels. In this case, in all of the three years of testing, we've not found detectable levels of pathogens in the water.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Interest in Developing More Selective Antihistamines
Narrator: This is Science Today. Histamine is an inflammatory compound produced during allergies. Previously, it was thought that in the lungs, histamine was produced by mast cells, which are classically associated with allergies. But in a surprise finding, researchers discovered that white blood cells in the lung can produce histamine in significant amounts. Study leader George Caughey, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, says white blood cells are a major component of pus.
Caughey: I'd like to understand that there may be a major connection between infections and the triggering of allergic effects. And that histamine released from white blood cells recruited by infectious organisms, in the process of trying to deal with the infection, may worsen allergy.
Narrator: Caughey says there's interest in developing more selective antihistamines.
Caughey: There are four different receptors to histamine and the currently available antihistamines only target one or two of them and often non-selectively.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
