During June and July 2008, almost 2,000 wildfires ignited in Northern California, leading to high levels of inhalable particulate matter (PM) in the Sacramento Valley that lasted for almost two weeks. PM2.5 (the terminology for inhalable particles smaller than 2.5 microns) at the UC Davis campus were recorded at 50 [...]
A UC Davis team, co-led by Alice Tarantal, PhD, and Peter Belafsky, MD, MPH, PhD, has received a $4.4 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) for their project entitled “Tissue Engineered Recellularized Laryngotracheal Implants”, which proposes to develop a stem cell-derived airway transplant to cure a difficult, life-threatening [...]
An experimental vaccine modeling human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection — which can endanger developing fetuses, transplant recipients, patients co-infected with HIV and others who have a weakened immune system — proved safe and effective in research conducted at the CNPRC using the rhesus macaque model. A team of scientists from the [...]
The flu season can be deadly for thousands of elderly people each year. There is a critical public health need to improve the effectiveness of influenza vaccines. Seminal research results were recently released by Drs. Chris Miller, DVM, PhD, CNPRC Core Scientist, and Tim Carroll, PhD, Post-doctoral scholar at the [...]
Collaborative efforts add critical information to understanding effects of BPA BPA (bisphenol A), is used in the manufacturing of various plastics and food packaging, consumer products, some paper receipts, and medical devices. It is controversial because it exerts weak, but detectable, hormone-like properties which can mimic estrogen and may lead [...]
In a major advance in understanding risk factors, and possible means of prevention of autism, Melissa Bauman, PhD, and David Amaral, PhD, performed studies at the CNPRC with rhesus monkeys to further define the role that maternal antibodies have to play in the risk of a child having autism. The research was [...]
Dr. Karen Bales, CNPRC Brain, Mind, and Behavior (BMB) Unit Leader, has done extensive research on the hormone oxytocin and its short and long-term effects on behavior in two monogamous species – prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) and titi monkeys (Callicebus cupreus). She is particularly interested in the role of neuropeptides [...]
Exposure of pregnant monkeys to the widely-used chemical bisphenol A (BPA) disrupts development of fetal ovaries, potentially causing birth defects and reproductive problems that would not emerge for a generation, according to research by Dr. Patricia Hunt and colleagues at Washington State University and Dr. Catherine VandeVoort at the CNPRC. [...]
Tenofovir (Viread), an antiretroviral HIV drug first shown by the CNPRC to be safe and effective in treating monkeys that were infected with SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus), has once again been used as the key ingredient in a pair of successful HIV preventative studies. The two new studies, by the [...]
Adding important new findings to extensive scientific evidence that Bisphenol A (BPA) is a harmful substance, Dr. Catherine VandeVoort, staff scientist in Reproductive Sciences and Regenerative Medicine at the CNPRC, has been part of a team effort investigating the effects of BPA on the fetal development in nonhuman primates and [...]
The GI tract is considered a major 'battlefield' between the immune system and HIV. The intestinal mucosa is the site of early infection and aggressive transmission for HIV, making it the first line of defense against the infection. A better understanding of what happens in the GI tract may lead [...]
