university of california riverside

(University of California - Riverside) A research team led by cell biologists at the University of California, Riverside has uncovered a new insight into colon cancer, the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States.

The team analyzed human colon cancer specimens and found that in nearly 80 percent of them the variants of a gene (HNF4A) are out of balance.

This imbalance appears to be the result of a complex, multi-step process by an enzyme (Src kinase).

(University of California - Riverside) Experiments performed by entomologists at UC Riverside to study how female Aedes aegypti -- mosquitoes that transmit yellow fever and dengue -- respond to plumes of carbon dioxide and human odor demonstrate that the mosquitoes are first attracted to puffs of exhaled carbon dioxide, then to a broad skin odor plume before landing on a human host.

Results from the study could clue scientists on how odors can be used in traps for intercepting host‑seeking mosquitoes.

(University of California - Riverside) Physicians can help their patients follow prescribed treatments and achieve healthier results -- particularly in chronic disease management -- by using a three-pronged strategy developed by a team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside, Texas State University-San Marcos, and La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif.The Information-Motivation-Strategy (IMS) Model -- developed after synthesizing findings from more than 100 large-scale studies and meta-analyses conducted between 1948 and 2009 -- appears in the peer-reviewed journa

(University of California - Riverside) Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have identified components in pomegranate juice that both inhibit the movement of cancer cells and weaken their attraction to a chemical signal that promotes the metastasis of prostate cancer to the bone.

The research could lead to new therapies for preventing cancer metastasis.

(University of California - Riverside) The malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, is spread to people by the female Anopheles mosquito, which feeds on human blood.

Karine Le Roch, a researcher at the University of California, Riverside, has received a nearly $1.7 million four-year grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to study how the human malaria parasite replicates itself inside red blood cells.

The long term goal is to devise new drug strategies against this devastating disease.

(University of California - Riverside) Jodie Holt, a professor of plant physiology at the University of California, Riverside and the botanical consultant for James Cameron's film Avatar, will receive the Paul Ecke Jr.

Award of Excellence "for her life's work as a distinguished scientist and educator" at a ceremony beginning at 5 p.m., September 11, 2010, at the San Diego Botanic Garden, 230 Quail Gardens Drive, Encinitas, Calif.

(University of California - Riverside) The University of California, Riverside's Anthony Norman, a leading international expert in vitamin D, proposes worldwide policy changes regarding people's vitamin D daily intake amount in order to maximize the vitamin's contribution to reducing the frequency of many diseases, including childhood rickets, adult osteomalacia, cancer, autoimmune type-1 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, obesity and muscle weakness.

Says Norman: "Worldwide public health is best served by a recommendation of higher daily intakes of vitamin D."

(University of California - Riverside) Vitamin D surfaces as a news topic every few months. How much daily vitamin D should a person get?

According to UC Riverside's Anthony Norman, an international expert on vitamin D, half the people in North America and Western Europe get insufficient amounts of the vitamin.

Elsewhere, the situation is worse.

(University of California - Riverside) Biologists at the University of California, Riverside have found that male crickets growing up in the presence of abundant male song tend to be larger, behave differently, and invest nearly 10 percent more reproductive tissue mass in their testes than male crickets growing up in a silent environment.

The subtle modifications of behavior depending on the environment, not genes, means that even in insects, animals are not "programmed" or "hard-wired" to do what they do.

(University of California - Riverside) Hyperactivity, the state of too much muscle activity, is the focus of a free public lecture at the University of California, Riverside next week.

Biologist Theodore Garland will give the hour-long lecture, titled "Born to Run: Evolution of Hyperactivity in Mice," at 7 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 29, in the University Theatre on campus.

Doors open at 6 p.m. Seating is open.