Uc Science Today

Racial issues have been widely discussed by sociologists, anthropologists, artists and filmmakers. Now, medical researchers are chiming in with their expertise. "We’re thinking about race in terms of self-identified race and ethnicity, a very specific measure in the context of biomedical research. And we’re the first group that’s looked at genome-wide molecular signature of race and ethnicity and shown that it differs not for just genetic reasons, but also probably for environmental reasons." That’s Noah Zaitlen, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He came to this conclusion with his colleagues while studying asthma rates in different ethnic groups. "It’s very high in Puerto Ricans. It’s high in African-Americans. It’s very low in Mexicans." So Zaitlen wanted to know why. He says if doctors looked not only at these groups’ genetics, but also at the communities they live in and the air that they breathe, they might have improved their diagnosis and treatments.

There may soon be a new way to treat multiple sclerosis, a debilitating autoimmune disease. Neurologist Bruce Cree of the University of California, San Francisco has been testing an experimental medication called ocrelizumab, which suppresses the immune system’s B-cells, which are a class of white blood cells. "And we think that B cells potentially play a very important role in multiple sclerosis.” Most existing MS drugs target T-cells and there are more side effects. “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. I think that’s the key distinction. I think the big advantage for B cell directed therapy in multiple sclerosis is going to be the ability to have highly effective treatment with a better tolerated and improved side effect profile for our patients." PHOTOGRAPH: Hugo Paice

Researchers may have underestimated the amount of methane emitted into the atmosphere in certain parts of the country. That’s according to physicist Marc Fisher of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “We conducted a study of methane emissions from San Francisco Bay Area and we found that emissions are roughly one and a half to two times the emissions expected based on inventory estimates, counting how many landfills, how many cows, how many wastewater treatment plants, how many different things that might emit methane.” So what does this discovery mean for us? “From a human health perspective methane itself is not a hazard unless it reaches such high levels that it combusts, but it is a very potent greenhouse gas." And this requires better management of the pollutant sources, like landfills, to reduce its contribution to climate change.