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Age-related cognitive decline and the escalating prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease are pressing social challenges as the population of those 65 and older continues to expand. Age is the primary risk factor, but research has shown that social and structural determinants of health play significant roles in the higher incidence of Alzheimer’s among marginalized communities.

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As human-driven climate change amplifies natural disasters, hurricanes and typhoons stand to increase in intensity. Until now, there existed very few freely available computer models designed to estimate the economic costs of such events, but a team of researchers led by Jane W. Baldwin at the University of California, Irvine recently announced the completion of an open-source model that stands to help countries with high tropical cyclone risks better calculate just how much those storms will impact their people and their economies.

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Rising sea levels from melting land ice caused an abrupt transition from dry to wet conditions in a subregion of mainland Southeast Asia some 14,000 years ago, accounting for the unique autumnal monsoons in this area. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other international institutions found evidence of this shift in the geochemical signals stored in a stalagmite taken from a remote cave in central Vietnam.

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A University of California, Irvine-led team of researchers have discovered that extracts from plants used by the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nations peoples in their traditional botanical medicine practices are able to rescue the function of ion channel proteins carrying mutations that cause human Episodic Ataxia.

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Irvine, Calif., June 21, 2023 — The process by which aged, or senescent, pigment-making cells in the skin cause significant growth of hair inside skin moles, called nevi, has been identified by a research team led by the University of California, Irvine. The discovery may offer a road map for an entirely new generation of molecular therapies for androgenetic alopecia, a common form of hair loss in both women and men.

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The University of California, Irvine has received a five-year, $10 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to lead a multi-institutional study of specific brain cell vulnerabilities to abnormal tau protein deposits in regions affected in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

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The University of California, Irvine has joined Unizin, a consortium of leading academic and research institutions committed to optimizing digital transformation in higher education. As a member, UCI has access to knowledge sharing and analytics tools to elevate its data-informed student success initiative UCI Compass.

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A team of scientists – including UC Irvine’s Distinguished Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Brandon Gaut and UC Davis’ Professors of Viticulture & Enology Dario Cantù and Andy Walker – has made a significant breakthrough in the battle against a devastating disease affecting grapevines.

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The Program in Public Health at the University of California, Irvine has received a five-year, $2.7 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to research the connection between low-level lead exposure during pregnancy and early childhood and children’s school performance and behavior in Santa Ana, California.

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Irvine, Calif., June 14, 2023 – In a discovery that could reduce or even eliminate the use of cobalt – which is often mined using child labor – in the batteries that power electric cars and other products, scientists at the University of California, Irvine have developed a long-lasting alternative made with nickel. “Nickel doesn’t have child labor issues,” said Huolin Xin, the UCI professor of physics & astronomy whose team devised the method, which could usher in a new, less controversial generation of lithium-ion batteries.

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In the quarter century between 1996 and 2020, wildfires in California consumed five times more area than they did from 1971 to 1995. Researchers at the University of California and other international institutions have concluded that nearly all of the increase in scorched terrain can be blamed on human-caused climate change.

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More than 8,200 students and their families will attend University of California, Irvine commencement ceremonies between Friday, June 16, and Tuesday, June 20, in the campus’s Bren Events Center. Overall, UCI will grant 8,966 degrees to 8,507 undergraduates this academic year. Additionally, 1,815 master’s degrees and 393 doctoral degrees will be awarded.

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An automated, bilingual, computerized alcohol screening and intervention health tool is effective in reducing alcohol use among Latino emergency department patients in the U.S., according to a study led by the University of California, Irvine. “This is the first bilingual, large-scale, emergency department-based, randomized clinical trial of its kind in the country focused on English- and Spanish-speaking Latino participants,” said lead author Dr.

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The quality of care for nursing home residents with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias is best when they are in the majority, but most facilities also accommodate a heterogeneous population, where specialized staff training is limited, according to a study led by the University of California, Irvine.

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The creation of three new multidisciplinary research institutes in The Henry Samueli School of Engineering is being made possible by a $50 million gift from Susan and Henry Samueli to the University of California, Irvine. Unified under the banner “Engineering+,” the Engineering+Health Institute, Engineering+Society Institute and Engineering+Environment Institute will allow researchers from diverse disciplines to conduct transformational research addressing the most important issues facing humanity today.

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Despite getting “the munchies”, people who frequently use cannabis are leaner and less prone to diabetes than those who don’t. University of California, Irvine researchers have now uncovered a possible explanation for this paradox – and it’s not good news.

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As climate change increases the severity, frequency and duration of heat waves around the world, researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions are sounding an alarm about what they consider to be an added threat to human health: humidity. Heat extremes increase the risk of illness and death, with the worst outcomes among people who are older, have chronic diseases, live in hot climates and are socioeconomically disadvantaged.

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Medicaid telemedicine coverage between 2013 and 2019 was associated with significant growth in telemedicine use and improved healthcare access, while private policies did not have such an association, according to a study led by the University of California, Irvine. An analysis of 20,000 records of U.

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Dyonne Bergeron – an accomplished higher education leader in the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion; academic affairs; and student affairs – has been named chief diversity officer and vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion at the University of California, Irvine, following a nationwide search.

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A University of California, Irvine-led team of researchers have discovered that the oldest-old, those who live to be 90+ and have superior cognitive skills, have similar levels of brain pathology as Alzheimer’s patients, however, they also have less brain pathology of other neurodegenerative diseases that cause memory and thinking problems.

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In a study published in the journal Health Equity, Brittany Morey, PhD, MPH, senior author and assistant professor of health, society and behavior at the UC Irvine Program in Public Health, highlights the health inequities that were exacerbated during the height of the pandemic. This study shared experiences of families that included individuals with different citizenship or immigration statuses, known as mixed-status families.

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Researchers from the University of California, Irvine found that residents of jurisdictions with a comprehensive sales ban have a 30% reduced odds of using flavored tobacco relative to those living in a jurisdiction without a ban. In contrast, lower use was not observed for residents of jurisdictions that enacted a partial sales ban.

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Eight assistant professors at the University of California, Irvine will receive Hellman Fellowships, which are bestowed annually to support research by junior faculty. They join an elite group of 77 UCI Hellman Fellows since 2013, when the Hellman Fellows Fund established the awards here. The program began in 1995 at UC Berkeley and UC San Diego and has since expanded organically to all UC universities and four private institutions.

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The University of California, Irvine will join Hillel International’s Campus Climate Initiative. Campus administrators will receive training and resources to create a positive environment for Jewish students. UCI is the first campus in the UC system to participate in Hillel’s CCI, as well as the first college in Orange County and third in the state.

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The MGAT5 glycosylation enzyme plays a crucial role in brain development, according to a study by University of California, Irvine researchers, a discovery that may contribute to new therapeutic purposes for neural stem cells.

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Gary Singer ’74, a retired partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP and chair of the Ronald M. Simon Family Foundation, has been elected as the new chair of the UCI Foundation Board of Trustees, effective June 1. This is the first time an alumnus will chair the board.

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Researchers from the University of California, Irvine have found that exposure to traffic-related air pollution in Irvine led to memory loss and cognitive decline and triggered neurological pathways associated with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

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IThe Beall Center for Art + Technology at the University of California, Irvine has received a $200,000 exhibition grant from the Getty Foundation to present “Future Tense: Art, Complexity and Predictability,” a thematic show and artist residency program. The Beall Center is among more than 45 Southern California awardees participating in the third collaboration of Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative.

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While conducting a study of Petermann Glacier in northwest Greenland, researchers at the University of California, Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory uncovered a previously unseen way in which the ice and ocean interact. The glaciologists said their findings could mean that the climate community has been vastly underestimating the magnitude of future sea level rise caused by polar ice deterioration.

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Researchers from the University of California, Irvine have developed a DNA enzyme – or DNAzyme – that can distinguish between two RNA strands inside a cell and cut the disease-associated strand while leaving the healthy strand intact. This breakthrough “gene silencing” technology could revolutionize the development of DNAzymes for treating cancer, infectious diseases and neurological disorders.

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In a University of California, Irvine-led study, researchers have discovered small-molecule drugs with potential clinical utility in the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy (DR), and retinitis pigmentosa (RP).

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Young adults who beat cancer face unique challenges later on in their adult lives. Researchers create an intervention that will improve psychosocial function in an underserved cancer survivor group, young adults who survived testicular cancer.

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UCI Public Health’s Tim Bruckner, PhD, a professor of health, society, and behavior joined a research team to analyze death certificate data during the Pacific Northwest heat wave and discovered the association of higher injury death rates.

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A team of researchers from the University of California, Irvine, have revealed the first crystal structures of the receptor-binding domain of botulinum neurotoxin E (BoNT/E) in complex with its human neuronal receptors, synaptic vesicle glycoprotein 2A (SV2A). This structure and other findings in the new study could be harnessed to engineer new BoNT/E variants with modified specificities toward different SV2 isoforms for new clinical developments.

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Highlighted by the program in education, nine fields of advanced study at the University of California, Irvine placed in the nation’s top 20 among public universities in U.S. News & World Report’s 2023-24 graduate school rankings, published online today, marking UCI as one of the leading locations in the country for students to pursue graduate degrees.

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Scientists at the University of California, Irvine have made a remarkable discovery about cellophane bees – their microbiomes are some of the most fermentative known from the insect world. These bees, which are named for their use of cellophane-like materials to line their subterranean nests, are known for their fascinating behaviors and their important ecological roles as pollinators.

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UCI Libraries is hosting a reception to celebrate the opening of its newest exhibit, “400 Years of Shakespeare’s First Folio.” The event begins at the Irvine Barclay Theatre with a discussion between Derek Quezada, exhibit curator and rare-books librarian at the University of Southern California, and Eric Rasmussen, Regents Teaching Professor and Foundation Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno.

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Acclaimed anthropologist, author and professor Leo Chavez from the University of California, Irvine – best known for his work in international migration, particularly among Latin American immigrants – has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. The 243rd class of inductees includes nearly 270 people from around the world, recognized for their accomplishments and leadership in academia, the arts, industry, public policy and research.

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The nano-scale electronic parts in devices like smartphones are solid, static objects that once designed and built cannot transform into anything else. But University of California, Irvine physicists have reported the discovery of nano-scale devices that can transform into many different shapes and sizes even though they exist in solid states.