This Injectable Hydrogel Mitigates Damage to the Right Ventricle of the Heart

An injectable hydrogel can mitigate damage to the right ventricle of the heart with chronic pressure overload, according to a new study published March 6 in Journals of the American College of Cardiology: Basic to Translational Science.  The study, by a research team from the University of California San Diego, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, was conducted in rodents.

Working Towards Toxic-Free AI

Unlike existing work, which relies on training data from social media examples, a new benchmark, named ToxicChat, is based on examples gathered from real-world interactions between users and an AI-powered chatbot. ToxicChat is able to weed out queries that use seemingly harmless language but are actually harmful, which would pass muster with most current models.

These Robots Helped Understand How Insects Evolved Two Distinct Strategies of Flight

Robots built by engineers at the University of California San Diego helped achieve a major breakthrough in understanding how insect flight evolved, described in the Oct. 4, 2023 issue of the journal Nature. The study is a result of a six-year long collaboration between roboticists at UC San Diego and biophysicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Finding Game-Changing Superconductors with Machine Learning Tools

Superconductors – found in MRI machines, nuclear fusion reactors and magnetic-levitation trains – work by conducting electricity with no resistance at temperatures near absolute zero, or -459.67F. The search for a conventional superconductor that can function at room temperature has been ongoing for roughly a century, but research has sped up dramatically in the last decade because of new advances in machine learning (ML) using supercomputers such as Expanse at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego.

New Technology Turns Smartphones into RFID Readers, Saving Costs and Reducing Waste

Imagine you can open your fridge, open an app on your phone and immediately know which items are expiring within a few days. This is one of the applications that a new technology developed by engineers at the University of California San Diego would enable.

This Groundbreaking Biomaterial Heals Tissues From the Inside Out

A new biomaterial that can be injected intravenously, reduces inflammation in tissue and promotes cell and tissue repair. The biomaterial was tested and proven effective in treating tissue damage caused by heart attacks in both rodent and large animal models. Researchers also provided proof of concept in a rodent model that the biomaterial could be beneficial to patients with traumatic brain injury and pulmonary arterial hypertension.

New Web Tracking Technique is Bypassing Privacy Protections

Two years ago, several browsers that prioritize user privacy — including Safari, Firefox, and Brave — began to block third-party cookies for all users by default. Advertisers have responded by pioneering a new method for tracking users across the Web, known as user ID (or UID) smuggling, which does not require third-party cookies. But no one knew exactly how often this method was used to track people on the Internet.

Innovative Self-Powered Ingestible Sensor Opens New Avenues for Gut Research

Engineers developed a battery-free, pill-shaped ingestible biosensing system that gives scientists the ability to monitor gut metabolites in real time, which wasn’t possible before. The work could lead to a new understanding of intestinal metabolite composition, which significantly impacts human health.

Nanoengineers Develop a Predictive Database for Materials

Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering have developed an AI algorithm that predicts the structure and dynamic properties of any material—whether existing or new—almost instantaneously. Known as M3GNet, the algorithm was used to develop matterverse.ai, a database of more than 31 million yet-to-be-synthesized materials with properties predicted by machine learning algorithms. Matterverse.ai facilitates the discovery of new technological materials with exceptional properties.

A new neuromorphic chip for AI on the edge, at a small fraction of the energy and size of today’s compute platforms

An international team of researchers has designed and built a chip that runs computations directly in memory and can run a wide variety of AI applications–all at a fraction of the energy consumed by computing platforms for general-purpose AI computing. The NeuRRAM neuromorphic chip brings AI a step closer to running on a broad range of edge devices, disconnected from the cloud, where they can perform sophisticated cognitive tasks anywhere and anytime without relying on a network connection to a centralized server.

UC San Diego Named 5th Best Public University by Academic Ranking of World Universities

The University of California San Diego has been ranked 5th among the nation’s best public universities for its award-winning faculty and alumni, academic performance and impactful research. The new 2022 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) ranking was released today by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, which also named UC San Diego 16th among colleges in the nation and 21st in the world.

New $10M NSF-Funded Institute Will Get to the CORE of Data Science

A new National Science Foundation initiative has created a $10 million dollar institute led by computer and data scientists at University of California San DIego that aims to transform the core fundamentals of the rapidly emerging field of Data Science.

A quarter of world’s Internet users rely on infrastructure at high risk of attack

About a quarter of the world’s Internet users live in countries that are more susceptible than previously thought to targeted attacks on their Internet infrastructure. Many of the at-risk countries are located in the Global South.

NSF makes $20 Million investment in Optimization-focused AI Research Institute led by UC San Diego

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced today an investment of $220 million to establish 11 artificial intelligence (AI) institutes, each receiving $20 million over five years. One of these, The Institute for Learning-enabled Optimization at Scale (TILOS), will be led by the University of California San Diego.

$5 million gift to establish new Center for Taiwan Studies at UC San Diego

Longtime campus supporters Chiu-Shan Chen Ph.D. ’69 and Rufina Chen have committed $5 million to the University of California San Diego to establish a new Center for Taiwan Studies within the Division of Arts and Humanities, highlighting the alum’s deep commitment to both giving back and supporting programs that expand cultural understanding of Taiwan and Taiwanese Americans.

Conrad Prebys Foundation Awards $500,000 Grant to Support UC San Diego Department of Music Outreach

The University of California San Diego Department of Music will expand its post-pandemic reach with support from a $500,000 grant from The Conrad Prebys Foundation. The grant, which contributes to the Campaign for UC San Diego, helps launch the department’s outreach to both regional audiences, and the international music community.

Supercomputers Illustrate the Mechanical Process of Cancer Growth

According to the World Health Organization, one in six worldwide deaths are attributed to cancer, but not due to initial malignant tumors. They were caused by the spread of cancer cells to surrounding tissues, which consist largely of collagen. That was the focus of a recent study by Stanford University and Purdue University researchers.

Supercomputers Help Advance Computational Chemistry

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have succeeded in developing an artificial intelligence (AI) approach to detect electron correlation – the interaction between a system’s electrons – which is vital but expensive to calculate in quantum chemistry.

Researchers Use Supercomputers to Better Understand the Sun’s Corona

As worldwide mandates prevented gatherings over the holiday season, crowds in Chile and Argentina donned masks and eye shields to take in some outdoor magic: a two-minute solar eclipse on December 14. A week before however, everyone had a chance to see what the eclipse might look like thanks to simulations generated on the recently launched ‘Expanse’ supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego.

‘Expanse’ Supercomputer Formally Enters Production

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego announced that its new Expanse supercomputer formally entered service for researchers following a program review by the National Science Foundation (NSF), which awarded SDSC a grant in mid-2019 to build the innovative system.

Supercomputers Help Model Potential SARS-CoV2 Protease Inhibitors for COVID-19

A team of researchers recently created a pharmacophore model and conducted data mining of the database of drugs approved by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) to find potential inhibitors of papain-like protease of SARS-CoV2, one of the main viral proteins responsible for COVID-19.

New Study Finds That Parasites Can Drain Energy from Hosts Prior to Infection

A new study by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences has found that a species of brain-infecting parasite can disrupt the metabolism of its host—the California killifish—both before and after infection.

UC San Diego Commits $2.5M to the Black Studies Project

This is a crucial time for each and every university to consider the role that Black studies plays in its intellectual and institutional formation, according to the conveners of the Black Studies Project (BSP) at UC San Diego. The current political moment has not only heightened the urgency of grappling with questions of Blackness and anti-Blackness, but has underscored the critical role that Black studies scholars and scholarship must play in this ongoing dialogue. Black studies has never been more relevant.

High-Performance Computing Aids in Predicting Oil Dispersal During Spills

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, thousands of oil spills occur each year in the United States. Although the majority of incidents involve less than one barrel, the spills have wreaked economic and environmental devastation for decades. Researchers recently created supercomputer simulations to better understand the fate of oil droplets for effective countermeasures.

Supercomputer Calculations Boost Our Understanding of Our Immune System

While researchers around the world race to develop an effective and safe COVID-19 vaccine, a team from the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego contributed to a study led by Vanderbilt Vaccine Center of Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) on T cell receptors, which play a vital role in alerting the adaptive immune system to mount an attack on invading foreign pathogens including the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

Former UC San Diego Chancellor and UC President Emeritus Richard Atkinson and Rita Atkinson to Establish Physician Assistant Education Program at UC San Diego

University of California President Emeritus and former UC San Diego Chancellor Richard Atkinson and Rita Atkinson have committed to give nearly $7 million to establish and endow the Richard C. and Rita L. Atkinson UC San Diego Physician Assistant Education Program at UC San Diego.

UC San Diego launches Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies program and minor, a welcome addition to campus

UC San Diego will have a new program in Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies starting in fall, a long-awaited move that many students, faculty, staff and alumni have been eager to see.

Offering cultural programming and the university’s very first minor in Asian American and Pacific Islander studies, the new program is housed in the Institute of Arts and Humanities, along with 14 additional programs.

Robots to Help Children Touch the Outside World

A team of University of California researchers is working to improve telepresence robots and the algorithms that drive them to help children with disabilities stay connected to their classmates, teachers and communities. The effort is funded by a $1 million grant from the National Robotics Initiative at the National Science Foundation.

National Science Foundation Funds Development of a Science Gateway for New Materials Discovery

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $1 million Research Advanced by
Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (RAISE) grant to a multidisciplinary team of researchers at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California San Diego, the University of Minnesota, Carnegie Mellon University, and Cornell University to create the X-ray Imaging of Microstructures Gateway (XIMG), a science gateway designed to make it possible for global material sciences researchers to study the behavior of new and existing materials using X-ray diffraction.