URAP

Britt Koskella - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Check back for status     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

We are building a new system (fire blight of pear trees) to better understand how bacteriophage viruses might impact the ability of a bacterial pathogen (Erwinia amylovora) to colonize and infect pear trees. We are tracking bacteria-phage interactions through time by isolating individual phages from each of 25 diseased...

Britt Koskella - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Check back for status     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

In natural systems, microorganisms interact with myriad other microbial populations which influence their evolution and ecology. When associated with a eukaryotic host, these complex microbial communities (known as microbiomes) also interact with and impact their host’s ecology and evolution, nutrient acquisition, and pathogen susceptibility. Despite the microbiome's vast importance on...

Ksenia Krasileva - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Filamentous fungi are hosts to pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, parasitic fungi, and grazing nematodes. Besides RNAi to protect fungal genomes from mycoviruses, a fungal inducible defense upon recognition of bacteria has yet to be fully described. Genes encoding nucleotide-binding domain Leucine-rich repeat-like (NLR-like) proteins are...

Ksenia Krasileva - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Plants have powerful defense mechanisms, which rely on an arsenal of plant immune receptors. Major classes of plant immune receptors include Receptor like kinases (RLKs), receptor like proteins (RLPs), and Nucleotide Binding Leucine Rich Repeat (NLR) proteins. On the population level, plant immune receptors provide plants with enough diversity to...

Ksenia Krasileva - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Plant diseases pose a significant threat to global agricultural crop production. Developing genetically modified plants with boosted disease resistance offers an economical and environmental solution. Plant immune receptors are naturally evolved resistance determinants that recognize target pathogen molecules to initiate defense responses. They have been widely used as transgenes. However...

Ksenia Krasileva - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Stripe rust along with stem and leaf rust are the major threat to wheat production worldwide. It is estimated that wheat rust pathogens cause a global annual loss of approximately 15 million tons, with a value of US$ 2.9 billion. Plant breeders are constantly putting in the effort to develop...

Layla Kwong - Professor, Public Health

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Influenzas infect 3-5 million hosts annually. Originating in avian hosts, novel strains of influenza virus have high mortality when they are transmitted to humans. Live poultry markets, including those in Bangladesh, are known focal points of disease transmission. We have collected data on building dynamics, worker exposures, and airborne avian...

Layla Kwong - Professor, Public Health

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

In large parts of Sub Saharan Africa, health facilities (e.g. hospitals and clinics) lack appropriate energy infrastructure. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where much of the continent's unelectrified are exposed to both climate and conflict pressures, the near-total absence of a central grid requires the health sector...

Layla Kwong - Professor, Public Health

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Exposure to animal feces can cause diarrhea, but not all animal feces are the same. While chicken poop can cause many child health issues, cow dung is used for many practical and spiritual purposes. What are people using cow dung for? How does this affect their spiritual lives, health, and...

Layla Kwong - Professor, Public Health

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

As temperatures continue to rise, workplace heat exposure presents an increasing challenge to occupational health and safety. This reality positions climate change as an important labor rights issue. Workers in developing countries will be among those most affected. Still, there exists limited research on the impacts of climate change on...

Peggy G. Lemaux - Professor of Cooperative Extension, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

General Description and Research Approach. Were heat waves or intense rainfall events common when you were growing up? Now, these events are common due to effects of climate change. These events include heatwaves, more severe and frequent rainstorms, increased wildfires and droughts. Recent Los Angeles fires are an example of...

Peggy G. Lemaux - Professor of Cooperative Extension, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench), is the fifth most important cereal crop worldwide and is a critical food, forage, and emerging biofuel crop. Understanding the photosynthetic mechanisms by which sorghum can capture sunlight more efficiently under adverse climate conditions is critical to using this crop to remove carbon dioxide that...

Dennis Levi - Professor, Optometry

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Research in my lab focuses on how we perceive visual forms and patterns, and how form and depth perception are degraded by abnormal visual experience early in life (amblyopia). Specifically, we use psychophysics, eye-movements, computational modelling and brain imaging (fMRI) to study the neural mechanisms of normal pattern vision...

Dennis Levi - Professor, Optometry

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Most observers experience the world in three dimensions (3D) made possible by a combination of monocular and binocular cues to depth. In Amblyopia, a developmental disorder of spatial vision, a significant portion of observers have very coarse or no stereopsis (a cue for 3D perception). Previous research has shown that...

Dennis Levi - Professor, Optometry

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Amblyopia is a neurodevelopmental disorder of spatial vision characterized by a reduction in visual acuity. Previous research has shown that several neuro, oculomotor and perceptual deficits are also present in persons with amblyopia. Particularly, research has shown that amblyopes have longer saccadic and manual latencies to stimuli (i.e., the time...

Dennis Levi - Professor, Optometry

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Most people with degraded vision (amblyopia) lack 3D-depth vision (stereoblindness). Using a simple training, the depth perceptual sense can be recovered and some people can experience depth in 3D movie theatres for the first time. The goal of the project is to test this phenomenon extensively and investigate what...

Jennifer Lewis - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

The plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae causes disease in a large number of different plant species, using the type III secretion system to secrete and translocate effector proteins into the plant. Many of these effector proteins are believed to function primarily in the suppression of host defense signaling. However recognition of...

Jennifer Lewis - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Check back for status     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

The plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae causes disease in a large number of different plant species. Virulence is primarily achieved by the type III secretion system, which secretes and translocates effector proteins into the plant. Many of these effector proteins are believed to suppress host defense signaling. However recognition of these...

Meng C. Lin - Professor, Optometry

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Dry eye disease (DED) is pervasive with some reports estimating over 16 million adults diagnosed with DED in the United States. It has been well documented that race, sex, systemic conditions, medications, and contact lens use are among the risk factors for DED. There are numerous dry eye questionnaires and...

Meng C. Lin - Professor, Optometry

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Our goals at the Clinical Research Center of the Herbert Wertheim School of Optometry and Vision Science are to explore new models and strategies for the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of ocular diseases through patient-based clinical studies/trials and translational research. We are committed to advancing the understanding of...

Meng C. Lin - Professor, Optometry

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

This research investigates the fascinating impact of aging on the morphology of the Meibomian gland (MG), which plays a pivotal role in Ocular Surface Disease. Traditionally, clinicians have employed subjective methods to identify and grade MG features such as atrophy, tortuosity, length, width, and ghosting. At the exciting crossroads of...

Meng C. Lin - Professor, Optometry

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Scleral lenses, unlike standard contact lenses, are large-diameter rigid lenses that rest on the sclera (white part of the eye) and create a tear-filled reservoir to hydrate the anterior ocular surface. They are primarily recommended for patients with corneal irregularities and dry eye diseases due to their capability...

Fenyong Liu - Professor, Public Health

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The long-term goals of our research are (1) to study the functions of genes of human herpes simplex virus (HSV) (the causative agent of genital herpes and cold sores) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) (the leading cause of congenital abnormalities in newborns and blindness and death in AIDS patients) in regulation...

Juan Liu - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Lateral line sensory system, or lateral line organ, or simply the lateral line, is a system of sensory organs found in fish and some tetrapods (four-legged vertebrates). The lateral line enables those vertebrates to detect and perceive the hydrodynamic and physical environment they inhabit including movement, vibration, and pressure...

Juan Liu - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Check back for status     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Scientific illustration is art in the service of science by drawing, painting, or rendering images of scientific subjects to accurately inform and communicate sciences. Research in fossil fishes (paleoichthyology) is at the junction of paleontology and ichthyology, and therefore, possesses characteristics of both —-- the incomplete nature of fossil preservations and...

Juan Liu - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Our study aims to explore the intricate details of mammalian hearing, with a specific emphasis on the function and evolution of the middle ear, with comparative anatomy with fish hearing apparatus. This critical aspect of auditory anatomy plays a pivotal role in the way mammals perceive and interpret sound. By...

Juan Liu - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Catfishes (Siluriformes) are remarkable among hearing specialist fishes in their possession of the Weberian apparatus, a conductive multi-ossicle chain linking the inner ear and swim bladder that is analogous to the middle ear ossicles of the mammalian tetrapods. Work with laboratory animals has produced considerable insight into the role...

John Liu - Professor, UC San Francisco

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary brain cancer. Despite decades of research to better treat this cancer, most patients unfortunately die within 2 years of diagnosis. Surgery followed by radiation therapy and chemotherapy comprise the standard of care for patients with GBM, but resistant to treatment poses a major...

Gabriel Loeb - Professor, Medicine, UCSF

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

I am a scientist and physician investigating molecular mechanisms underlying human disease--with a particular focus on kidney disease. My laboratory integrates computational approaches with human genetics and advanced experimental models to discover genetic mechanisms of disease. We have a particular interest in understanding the molecular basis of kidney disease...

Gabriel Loeb - Professor, Medicine, UCSF

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

I am a scientist and physician with a broad interest in mechanisms underlying human disease. Our laboratory studies genetic mechanisms underlying kidney disease and develops approaches to discover novel disease mechanisms that are broadly applicable to many human diseases. Many of the genetic variants (changes in the genome) which contribute...

Gabriel Loeb - Professor, Medicine, UCSF

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     

Polycystic Kidney Disease is the most common genetic cause of kidney failure. We know the genes that are mutated in Polycystic Kidney Disease but still do not have good treatments for patients with this disease. Our laboratory, which is led by a physician-scientist works on mechanisms underlying polycystic kidney...

Lúcia Lohmann - Professor, University and Jepson Herbaria

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Herbaria are museums that house preserved plant collections for scientific purposes. For centuries, plant specimens have been collected from various locations, labeled with essential data, and stored for use by scientists and researchers worldwide. Properly curated plant specimens can last indefinitely, providing data for generations of scholars to study taxonomy...

Lúcia Lohmann - Professor, University and Jepson Herbaria

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

The spirit collection in the University and Jepson Herbaria houses thousands of plant and algae specimens preserved in alcohol. This preservation method is essential for material that cannot be dried or pressed, as it retains their three-dimensional structure and allows for detailed examination without the distortion or shrinkage that...

Cynthia Looy - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

At present, flowering plants (angiosperms) represent ~90% of the land plant species and are dominant in most global biomes. However, the first flowering plant is known from the fossil record around 135 million years ago (mya) during the Early Cretaceous, much more recent compared to the gymnosperms, which first appeared...

Cynthia Looy - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: Off Campus

In many ways, the Earth of the Permian period (298.9-251.9 million years ago) would have looked alien to a modern observer: the Earth’s surface was divided between the supercontinent Pangea and the superocean Panthalassa, strange animals neither mammal nor dinosaur dominated terrestrial faunas, and no flower would bloom for more...

Cynthia Looy - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Pollinators are essential components of a healthy ecosystem and provide vital benefits to both plants and animals. The student-run pollinator garden on the south side of the Valley Life Science Building (VLSB) supports native insects, spiders, and other wildlife and is an environmental education resource for students. Our goal...

Cynthia Looy - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Check back for status     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: Off Campus

Plants are adapted to the physical conditions in their environments, including temperature, precipitation, atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and light level. In cooler and drier habitats, leaves tend to be smaller with condensed venation and toothed margins. While under warmer and wetter conditions, leaves tend to be larger, have ‘drip tips’, and...

Dengke Ma - Professor, UC San Francisco

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Genome evolution has enabled organisms to live in and adapt to nearly every ecological niche on Earth. Humans live in an oxygen-rich ecosystem and human tissues are susceptible to deprivation of oxygen (hypoxia) under pathological conditions, including ischemic stroke and heart attack. Many organisms, from anaerobic bacteria to hibernating...

Dengke Ma - Professor, UC San Francisco

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

The nematode C. elegans can be frozen alive, suspend life and revive later virtually any long after freezing, unlike many other multicellular organisms, including flies, fish, mice and humans. How C. elegans achieves this feat remains a fascinating unsolved mystery. This project will use our newly established reporters and assays...

Charles Marshall - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

The colonization of land by plants and animals from the oceans was pivotal in our planet’s history, leading to major climate change and the evolution of the great forests, dinosaurs, and our own species. However, the first terrestrial and freshwater aquatic ecosystems are poorly understood due to a spotty fossil...

Charles Marshall - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

This research seeks to understand the factors responsible for species dispersal. Specifically, we are interested in dispersals during an event known as the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI). GABI was a large-scale exchange of taxa between North and South America via the emergence of the Isthmus of Panama. These...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The huge diversity of animal lifeforms that occupy virtually every ecological niche on our planet are all produced through the transformation of a single-celled zygote to a multicellular, fully functional organism via the processes encompassed by embryogenesis. It is through tweaks and changes to these developmental mechanisms that new...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The evolution of vertebrates is intimately linked to the advent of the neural crest, a migratory and multipotent cell population that gives rise to many defining vertebrate characteristics, such as the jaw and peripheral gangilia. Where the neural crest arise along the body axis during developmement has great impacts on...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The neural crest (NC) is a transient stem cell population that emerges during early vertebrate embryogenesis. Characterized by its migratory behavior and multipotency, the NC gives rise to diverse cell types and tissue derivatives including elements of the peripheral nervous system, the craniofacial skeleton, and the cardiovascular system. The NC...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Neural crest is an embryonic stem cell population that originates in the neural tube and migrates into the developing organs such as the heart and gut to form diverse cell types, including neurons and muscle cells. BMP signaling plays an important role in their terminal differentiation, yet how BMP target...

Susana Matias - Cooperative Extension Specialist, Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: Off Campus

The focus of this project is to assess the uptake and impact of a produce prescription program, implemented by a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in Yolo County. We will measure the effectiveness of the program to improve food security, fruit and vegetable consumption, and weight and diabetes indicators among...

Jimmy McGuire - Professor, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

The island of Sulawesi in Indonesia is a hotspot of biodiversity and model system for studying the evolution of organisms. Our lab has conducted numerous expeditions to the island to document its biodiversity and collect samples for genetic analysis. Our lab uses molecular and morphological tools to reconstruct the evolutionary...

Jimmy McGuire - Professor, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Status: Check back for status     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Amphibians are the world’s most imperiled vertebrate group. Confounding efforts to combat amphibian declines is that we have little knowledge concerning most of the species and much of it not easily accessible. Since 2000, we have been developing an informatics platform to create a web page for every species of...

Marisa Medina - Professor, UC San Francisco

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

There are a limited number of human omics datasets that include menopausal status information for female subjects and include enough premenopausal and postmenopausal women. For instance, multi-omics data has been generated for thousands of Framingham Heart Study (FHS) participants and hundreds of TwinsUK female twin pairs. We will compare...

Marisa Medina - Professor, UC San Francisco

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

A subset of women experience an accelerated rise in certain cardiometabolic risk factors around the time of menopause, increasing their risk for heart disease and other conditions. We would like to discover why some women experience dramatic changes while others are relatively protected...