Uc Science Today

Hi there! It’s been a busy week here at Science Today. We learned that diagnosing brain disorders can often be a challenge for doctors because some psychological diseases have overlapping symptoms. These include memory loss in patients with depression and suppressed mood in people suffering from dementia. But radiologist Cyrus Raji of UC San Francisco led a study, which found that neuroimaging and machine learning can help improve diagnosis. "Each individual had a perfusion neuroimaging, where this is a nuclear tracer injected into them and that allowed the mapping of the blood flow in the brain and that allows us to quantify blood flow in 128 regions and use machine learning analysis to separate who had depression or cognitive disorders or both." Raji explains that machine learning is often used to quickly process and analyze patient’s data in digital format – and it may be used in the future to find new biomarkers that can help in deciphering if one has a brain disorder vs. another issue. While on campus

Excessively overweight women may be at higher risk of developing breast cancer. That’s a big problem in the United States where over half the country's population is overweight or obese. “Even though it is not a very strong risk factor it becomes so prevalent. If you look at postmenopausal women who are diagnosed with breast cancer, about a third of them are overweight or obese." Study leader Karla Kerlikowske says the hormone estrogen is to blame. "When you are a postmenopausal woman, your estrogen level becomes very low, approaching 0. But when you are obese, that fat can create estrogen metabolite, so instead of your estrogen levels being 0, they would remain higher than they would otherwise. And that circulating estrogen from being overweight women contributes to women developing breast cancer. ” So keeping body mass index under control might help you lower the risk of cancer.

Diagnosing brain disorders can often be a challenge for doctors, as some psychological diseases have overlapping symptoms. These include memory loss in patients with depression and suppressed mood in people suffering from dementia. But neuroimaging and machine learning can help improve diagnosis. In fact, radiologist Cyrus Raji of the University of California, San Francisco, led a study to prove just that. “Each individual had a perfusion neuroimaging, where there is a nuclear tracer injected into them and that allowed the mapping of the blood flow in the brain. And that allow us to quantify blood flow in 128 regions of the brain and use machine learning analysis to separate who had depression or cognitive disorders or both." Machine learning is used often to quickly process and analyze patients’ data in digital format. “What machine learning will do in the future for research is it will help us find new biomarkers that are helpful in predicting either who has a disorder or who has one disorder vs another

Stem cells studies have been controversial, but once scientists started using adult cells, instead of embryos, their experiments became more acceptable. Neurologist Lauren Weiss of the University of California, San Francisco, says with technological advancements, researchers are now facing new challenges. "A lot of the current public debates are around gene editing technologies, so we are not actively using those in the labs now. But I think that’s where I think some of the concern has shifted. So with this new ability to make a change in someone’s genome, if it is done at a very early stage of development, it could affect every generation from there on out.” Weiss, who is studying brain disorders using neurons grown out of stem cells, thinks that researchers can use gene editing without ethical implications. "But that is sort of a thought of where it could go in the future, where we sort of need to be prepared to think about what are the limitations that we want to impose and need to impose.”

Younger women are more likely to develop breast cancer if their breasts are dense. This means they have more supportive tissue, rather than fatty tissue, around the ducts. That’s according to a new study by Karla Kerlikowske of the University of California, San Francisco. “The risk of breast cancer increases with age, but if you look among younger women who do develop breast cancer, more of them will have dense breasts. “ Cancer rarely develops in fat, so that’s why when it comes to breast density older women have a smaller risk of developing the disease. And that’s because compared to younger women, they tend to have fatty breast tissue. “In older women it maybe a third of women that have dense breasts, when in premenopausal women it is about two-thirds of women who have dense breasts. It is a more common risk factor, but it is also a strong risk factor. ”

This week on Science Today, we learned that the treatment of concussions has not been very well-defined, so radiologist Pratik Mukherjee at UC San Francisco is calling for more studies and a better understanding from doctors and researchers. "Some people recommend cognitive rest, where you stay away from doing anything intense; physical or mental activities; stay away from bright lights and loud noises for several days. Some of the more recent studies are saying, well, maybe that’s not quite the right approach. People should try to return to their regular activities as soon as they can and stay active." We also learned while at UCSF that younger women are more likely to develop breast cancer if their breasts are dense. That means, there is more supportive tissue, rather than fatty tissue around the ducts. Breast cancer researcher Karla Kerlikowske told us that cancer rarely develops in fat and older women have a smaller risk of developing the disease because compared to younger women, they tend to have fat

The treatment of concussions has not been well-defined, and it’s sometimes controversial. So radiologist Pratik Mukherjee of the University of California, San Francisco is calling for more studies and a better understanding from doctors and researchers. “Some people recommend cognitive rest, where you stay away from doing any intense physical or mental activities, stay away from bright lights and loud noises for several days. Some of the more resent studies are saying, well, maybe this is not quite the right approach. People should try to return to their regular activities as soon as they can and stay active and that would be better for leaving the symptom of concussion and doing better long term.” Mukherjee has been studying injured brains with advanced MRI scanners, which he believes could help solve some of the mystery about concussions. “The methods to do cognitive training, cognitive rehabilitation in the areas that are affected by concussions, namely attention, memory, decision making are improving

Advanced image-capturing technology for MRI scanners paired with powerful computers, allow researchers to quickly detect and analyze the smallest changes in brain function after a concussion. Radiologist Pratik Mukherjee of the University of California, San Francisco explains how it works. “With the latest technology that we are starting to apply, we can actually get several images of the brain within one second. So we can image the entire brain in less than a second. And we do it continually during the scan for many minutes so we are getting thousands, even tens of thousands images of the brain, which are snapshots over time of function in the brain and the way different brain regions connected to each other.” In the late 1990s, it used to take the whole day to process much smaller amount of data with the best computers scientists had at the time. “Now we can do the statistics within seconds. So as we are doing the scan, we can start getting the information we need.”

Want to know how our brain is formed and what causes changes in its structure? You could look at a mini-brain…this is emerging 3D technology created from stem cells. “Mini brains allow you to ask some questions that are more challenging to ask about a single cell essentially in isolation, vs. what happens when cells are moving in a three-dimensional space and interacting with each other in three-dimensions as well.” That’s neurologist Lauren Weiss of the University of California, San Francisco. She has been studying brain disorders in the lab by looking at neurons grown from skin cells. Weiss says a mini brain is the next step in research because it re-creates the structure of a real brain. “It is layers of cells that have different kinds of structures and functions, ultimately.” Using mini-brains Weiss hopes to study micro- and macrocephaly, autism and other developmental disorders.

This week on Science Today, we learned that a major risk factor for breast cancer is a woman’s breast structure – specifically, what’s called breast density. Karla Kerlikowske of the University of California, San Francisco explains it’s a radiologic term because on a mammogram, doctors look at how much dense tissue someone has versus how much fat tissue. "We found breast density was four times more likely to account for the development of breast cancer than having a first degree relative who'd had breast cancer." So Kerlikowske recommends that women in this risk group should pay extra attention to screening. Meanwhile, at UCLA, we talked to Karen Gylys at the School of Nursing, who says when it comes to Alzheimer’s disease, some simple lifestyle changes can make a huge difference – even in patients who are already cognitively impaired. "So things like exercise, things like Mediterranean diet, fish oil, there’s evidence that that these things can move the dial on neuropsychiatric tests in elderly subjects

This is Science Today. Every year, about 250 thousand women in America are diagnosed with breast cancer, making it one of the leading types of cancers nationwide. And now a University of California, San Francisco study reveals a major risk factor of the disease. Study leader Karla Kerlikowske says it’s breast structure, or as researchers says, breast density. “Breast density is a radiologic term. On a mammogram, you look at how much in quotes “dense” tissue someone has vs how much fat." Kerlikowske’s team evaluated over 200,000 women and discovered that breast density by far exceeds other risk factors. “People commonly think if you have a family history of breast cancer that contributes mostly to women developing breast cancer, but we found breast density was 4 times more likely to account for the development of breast cancer than having a first degree relative who had breast cancer." Kerlikowske says women in this risk group should pay extra attention to screening tests.

Precision medicine should change the way researchers conduct experimental studies. That’s according to pediatric surgeon Hanmin Lee of the University of California, San Francisco. “All the studies that are currently done right now and all the data that is collected is generally on one subset of patients which is generally older white men. But for let’s say young under-represented female minority patients, the implication of this manifestation, this disease, might be far different.“ So, Lee says scientists should make studies more inclusive. “And we can only get to that if we look at large data sets as opposed to what we’ve done historically in the past, which is looking at a 100 or 200 patients in a trial.” Lee hopes the era of electronic medical records will give researchers and doctors access to a large volume of reliable data, which will help make studies and medicine more precise.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new drug that could halt multiple sclerosis, a devastating disease that affects hundreds of thousands of Americans. Neurologist Bruce Cree of the University of California, San Francisco, was part of the team testing ocrelizumab, which goes by the brand name Ocrevus. Cree explains that it targets B cells in the human body and blocks the inflammation that drives the disease. Most MS therapies in the past targeted T cells, which often had serious side effects. "You can have profound immunological effects and clinical benefits by just targeting B cells alone. And I think this is actually an important advance for multiple sclerosis because when you just target these cells without affecting T cells, you have less of a potential for adverse events due to broad spectrum immune suppression."

There was a lot of exciting University of California research news this past week. First the Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug that could halt Multiple Sclerosis. We had previously spoken to neurologist Bruce Cree of the University of California, San Francisco about his work testing the new drug, called ocrelizumab. At the time, Cree explained that it actually targets B-cells in the human body, blocking the inflammation that drives the disease. He explained that most MS therapies in the past targeted T-cells, which often had serious side effects. "You can have profound immunological effects and clinical benefits by just targeting B-cells alone. And I think this is actually an important advance for multiple sclerosis because when you just target B-cells without affecting T-cells, you have less of a potential for adverse events due to broad spectrum immune suppression." Really, such great news considering this devastating disease affects hundreds of thousands of Americans and more than 2.3 mill

Researchers have found a new way to study brain disorders. Neurologist Lauren Weiss of the University of California, San Francisco is growing brain cells out of simple skin biopsies taken from patients with autism and other developmental problems. “We can grow those cells in a lab and then turn them into stem cells, and ultimately into the cells of the brain. That’s a pretty amazing advance when you think about how challenging it is to study the human brain. Nobody wants to give you too much access to that.” Obtaining living neurons is complicated and may raise ethical concerns. So this new method solves these problems by effectively growing brain cells in petri dishes. “The technology has evolved very quickly. We are increasing the number of different types of neurons we can pretty consistently make in the lab." And that gives scientists more opportunities to study brain abnormalities. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.

A new technique called exome sequencing is a revolutionary way to look at our DNA. This, according to psychiatrist Stephen Sanders of the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. Basically, it allows researchers to determine the structure of all expressed genes in a genome and recently, it helped UCSF scientists find mutations in a gene that triggers autism. “And that was a gene called SCN2A, which stands for Voltage Gated Sodium Channel 2 Alpha. When we saw that result, we were very excited, because we could show that this gene was associated with autism. It was playing an important role in what autism is on a neurological level.” Sanders and his colleagues found that people with autism have more S-C-N-2-A mutations, than those without this disease. “And before this technology it would have been impossible to have found enough mutations to work this out." Sanders says the next step will be to identify the specific type of the gene mutation and predict the severity of autism.

One way to improve the nation’s healthcare quality is to start effectively analyzing medical data using modern technology in clinics and hospitals. This is something that the industry hasn’t done just yet, according to pediatric surgeon Hanmin Lee of the University of California, San Francisco. “We don’t have one unified electronic medical record system. So it is hard to aggregate big data, but I believe we are on the cusp of that. ” Lee says diagnostic methods should be improved too. “For instance, the data that the nurses collect to determine whether a patient is in a good or bad nutritional status is they record how much food is left on a patient’s tray when it gets taken away by the support staff. So that’s the best metric to ascertain whether or not patients are at high or low risk of decubitus ulcers. To currently use this, it borders on the preposterous.” According to Lee, with a modernized approach to data and technology, doctors could better understand diseases and bring precision medicine to f

Globally, head injuries are a growing problem. In the U.S., more than 3 million Americans are admitted to emergency rooms every year after suffering a concussion. “And concussion rates are rising in other countries, too. Especially in developing countries like China and India because they have many more motor vehicles on the roads now. “ That’s radiologist Pratik Mukherjee of the University of California, San Francisco, He says this topic doesn’t get a lot of media attention, unless athletes or military personal suffer head trauma. Even injured people normally ignore minor concussions, usually after they fall down or get into a car accident. But fortunately, there is increasing awareness about concussions. “You know, having your bell rung, is not necessarily a benign condition and is not something you just walk off like people used to say.” Undetected and untreated concussions can lead to continued problems like headaches, insomnia, depression, or even to dementia and premature death. For Science Toda

A proof-of-concept study at the University of California, Berkeley has found promise in a pill-sized technology that could lead to painless oral vaccines. Aside from not having to deal with a needle anymore, we asked study leader Dorian Liepmann what are some of the other advantages of a system like this? "Well, the great thing is we can actually do this at home. You could give this to people so they don’t need to go to a pediatrician. One of my co-investigators suggested that we could actually put this in a lollipop for children. And so they would just hold it in their mouth until the drug was delivered, and then they’d have the rest of the lollipop. You don’t need trained personnel to give you a shot, which is a huge expense. Also, for better distribution to Third World countries or to rural areas, you could actually get your vaccinations done very, very easily and effectively." The technology, called Mucojet, still needs to go through clinical trials, so it could be 5 to 10 years before it’s available,

This week on Science Today, we learned how a pediatric surgeon is helping to kick-start innovative projects to bring to clinics in an effort to advance children’s health. Dr. Hanmin Lee of UC San Francisco, says even though technology, biology and medicine go hand-in-hand, advanced devices are not always available to the most vulnerable hospital patients because of insufficient funding. "We organize the engineering of children’s health symposiums to try to bring all the emerging technologies to the benefit of children’s health." UCSF is involved in developing many such emerging technologies, including different types of monitoring sensors, artificial organs, and little robots - all to help children with a variety of disabilities for their benefit. And when it comes to vaccinations for kids, we spoke to a UC Berkeley’s Dorian Liepmann about their new pill-sized technology that could lead to painless oral vaccines. "One of my co-investigators suggested that we could actually put this in a lollipop for chil