Biological Sciences

Unraveling Cancer’s Neural Connections: NIH-Funded Study Investigates How Stem Cell Regulation Influences Tissue Renewal, Cancer Development

November 3, 2025

The same cellular renewal that keeps our bodies healthy might also fuel the growth of cancer. A UC Merced biologist has found that the brain could hold the key to stopping it. Professor Néstor Oviedo, a molecular and cell biologist and affiliate of the Health Sciences Research Institute,...

Professor Secures Funding from Major Biotech Company to Advance Diabetes Research

UC Merced biology Professor Rudy Ortiz is furthering his innovative research into diabetes with support from a major pharmaceutical company. Ortiz’ work, developing new applications for medicines...

Natural Sciences Dean, Professor Link UC Merced to Knowledge Hub

A collaboration between a dean and a professor and a grant from the National Science Foundation have made UC Merced part of a national nanotechnology-biology hub that will expand both knowledge and...

Graduate Student Bringing UC Merced to Western Pacific

Graduate student Sharon Patris likes spending time at a lake in the middle of the forest on an uninhabited island in the western Pacific. The marine lake named Ongiem’l Tketau and informally known as...

Undergraduate Applications to UC Merced Surge 14 Percent

Editor’s Note: As of mid-February, UC Merced’s graduate student applications increased by 6.6 percent over last year. This press release reports a 41 percent increase, which at the time (Jan. 18) was...

Gaming Graphics Changing How Computational Science is Conducted

Professor Christine Isborn is doing quantum chemistry at the speed of graphics. Isborn is using the same graphics computer cards (graphical processing units, or GPUs) that make your Playstation...

UC Merced Researcher, Graduate Student, Contribute to Inventory of All Marine Life

Counting the number of species that live in the Earth’s oceans sounds as impossible as counting the grains of sand on a beach. But a global collaboration involving a UC Merced researcher and a...

Professor Working to Stop Melanoma in its Tracks

Professor Fabian Filipp is trying to put up roadblocks. But instead of stopping cars, he’s trying to keep cancers from growing. Filipp, a systems biology professor who started at UC Merced this fall...

UC Merced Faculty Opinion in Journal Science

Professor Mónica Medina started out as the only marine biologist in a National Science Foundation workshop last year, but she ended up with a group of new partners and an opinion piece in the...

Study Sheds Light on Bacterial Cell Division

Staph, e-coli, meningitis, MRSA and botulism are just a few of the thousands of bacterial infections that plague people all over the world. For example, almost 23,300 people in the United States were...