A complete sequence of the human genome has finally been published by an international consortium of scientists. The new reference genome fills in gaps left by earlier drafts, which will help researchers better understand genetic variation and how it can sometimes lead to disease.

In the choreography of meiosis—the process responsible for sex cell division in all eukaryotic life—the pairing of homologous chromosomes (homologs) is essential. Errors in this process can lead to an incorrect number of chromosomes in sex cells, which can result in birth defects and miscarriages. Despite being studied for more than 100 years, mysteries about the process still abound.

A study led by the University of California, Davis, has found significant differences in gut bacteria between Black and white women, even after accounting for their insulin sensitivity status. The study, published in PLOS ONE, is the first to focus on premenopausal Black and white women and to show such differences.

Wilsaan Joiner, an associate professor in neurobiology, physiology and behavior and Jonathon Schofield, an associate professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering, and colleagues, are working to develop better and more functional prosthetic devices for children.

It’s estimated that over 281,000 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, according to the National Cancer Institute. And about one in seven women will receive a breast cancer diagnosis in their lifetime.

For those with breast cancer gene 2 (BRCA2) mutations, the risk of developing breast cancer is much higher. Between 45 and 69 percent of those with this genetic mutation will develop breast cancer by 70 to 80 years of age. 

The first atlas of metabolites in the mouse brain has been published by a team led by UC Davis researchers. The dataset includes 1,547 different molecules across 10 brain regions in male and female laboratory mice from adolescence through adulthood and into advanced old age. The work is published Oct. 15 in the Nature Communications. The complete dataset is publicly available at https://mouse.atlas.metabolomics.us/.

UC Davis’ asymptomatic COVID-19 testing program completed its 1 millionth test last week, a little more than a year since the campus began offering tests to on-campus students, faculty and staff in mid-September 2020.

“Our asymptomatic testing program was the original foundation of the university’s COVID-19 strategy and, along with vaccination, continues to be central to our mitigation efforts,” said Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Mary Croughan.

Last month, the University of California, Davis, officially launched a consortium called the UC Davis Neuroscience Consortium (UCDNC) to leverage the strength, breadth and depth of one of the largest neuroscience communities in the world. The consortium brings together nearly 300 researchers from eleven centers and 41 departments — integrating biologists, chemists, social scientists, engineers, computer scientists and clinicians.

Gerald Quon, an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and the Genome Center, has received a New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award will support the development of a computational framework for characterizing how genetic variants associated with the risk of psychiatric diseases like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder work at the at the cellular level.

People love stories. We find it easier to remember events when they are part of an overarching narrative. But in real life, the chapters of a story don’t follow smoothly one from another. Other things happen in between. A new brain imaging study from the Center for Neuroscience at the University of California, Davis, shows that the hippocampus is the brain’s storyteller, connecting separate, distant events into a single narrative. The work is published Sept. 29 in Current Biology.

UC Davis engineers have invented shaking and inversion machines that are a critical part of the UC Davis Genome Center’s award-winning asymptomatic COVID-19 testing. These machines, designed and built by biological and agricultural engineering (BAE) development engineer Dennis Sadowski, professor Stavros Vougioukas and postdoctoral researcher Zhenghao Fei in just six weeks, help treat saliva samples so they can be tested for the virus.

Opioids are powerful painkillers but their use is hindered because patients become tolerant to them, requiring higher and higher doses, and overdoses can cause respiratory depression and death. A recent study from researchers at the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience contradicts existing thinking about how opioid drugs cause tolerance and respiratory depression, and suggests a new, balanced approach to developing safer analgesics. The work was published July 13 in Neuropsychopharmacology.

We watch a ball as it falls into our glove. We hear a strange sound in another part of the house and listen intently. In neuroscience, the act of narrowing our senses in response to an environmental event is called “attention,” and it is understood that when we attend to a stimulus, we lose the ability to focus on other surrounding inputs.

Think of chromosomes as nature’s shoelaces. Built from DNA, these thread-like structures carry and ferry the genetic information necessary for life. To maintain genetic integrity, chromosomes possess protective structures located at their ends called telomeres. These telomeres are like the plastic tips of shoelaces, preventing the genetic thread from unraveling as cells continuously divide.

A new study by UC Davis researchers confirms the low likelihood that SARS-CoV-2 contamination on hospital surfaces is infectious. The study, published June 24 in PLOS ONE, is the original report on recovering near-complete SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences directly from surface swabs.