News & Events

Inside our cells are tiny engines that supply the energy to sustain life. These protein machines essentially burn our food – producing CO2 and harnessing the energy that is released to sustain growth, movement and even thought.

Each year, roughly 1.6 million people worldwide are born with genetic diseases that disrupt these tiny cellular engines – making life difficult.

“Mutations in these protein complexes are really devastating, and often lethal,” says James Letts, an associate professor of molecular and cellular biology. 

The University of California, Davis, is No. 10 among the nation’s top public universities in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2026, published on Oct. 8.

It was one of four UC campuses ranked in the top 10 public universities in the nation.

UC Davis was 25th among more than 1,500 public and private American universities and 64th among nearly 2,200 universities from 115 countries and territories.

Each year, the CBS Dean’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) supports students who wish to stay on campus—and in the lab—over the summer term.

Normally, undergraduates leave campus for the summer if they are not enrolled in classes. They often do this to work and save funds for the start of the next academic year. SURP consists of several different donor-funded undergraduate research awards and allows students to continue their research projects over the summer.

A new study by the University of California, Davis, shows how cells work together to avoid a sudden drop in blood sugar. Understanding these feedback loops could improve the lives of people with diabetes and help them avoid dangerous hypoglycemia.

The work was published Sept. 16 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Almost overnight, the season changed from the usual Davis summer heat to fall, which is a welcome shift—the wind is up, the skies are a little grayer, the days are shorter and, most importantly, the students are back.