Health Sciences Research Institute

Vaping Produces a Chemical that Destroys Human Tissue, Research Shows

August 7, 2025

In addition to being used recreationally, marijuana and cannabidiol, or CBD, one of the cannabinoids produced by the marijuana plant, are thought to have medical benefits such as helping with chemotherapy-induced nausea, treating epilepsy, relieving pain and helping with a variety of mental health...

Sliding on Waves of Atoms: Lab Is First to Observe Ripples and Friction on 2D Materials

Mechanical Engineering Professor Mehmet Baykara’s latest discovery in two-dimensional (2D) materials will have implications for future space missions, as well as nanotechnology on Earth....

Researchers Seek to Understand Messy Proteins that are Critical to Cellular Function

Biophysical chemistry Professor Shahar Sukenik and the graduate students in his lab are trying to make sense out of what might seem to some to be chaos. They aim to better understand how a series of...

Statewide Coalition Forming to Bring COVID Awareness to At-Risk Communities

A new coalition of universities and community partners across the state — including UC Merced —aims to address the COVID-19 pandemic in communities that are disproportionally affected...

ACTIVATE Bringing Telehealth Services to Vulnerable Merced County Residents

(Photo credit: DocBook) Researchers at the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute at the University of California have launched a...

$3.5 Million Hellman Endowment Expands Future of Research at UC Merced

Since 2011, the Hellman Fellows Fund has provided close to 60 UC Merced assistant professors with much-needed research support in the form of seed funding. The prestigious Hellman Fellowship has...

New Project Aims to Advance Understanding of Immune Cells as they Develop

Maybe now more than ever, scientists need to understand the immune system. A new National Institutes of Health grant is funding a cross-disciplinary collaboration between bioengineering Professor...

Study Reveals How Chemicals in Flame Retardants Interfere with Brain Development

Many of the items people use in their everyday lives, from baby clothes and Halloween costumes to furniture, are doused with chemical flame retardants designed to make the items safer. But a ...

Researcher Offers Guide to Coping with COVID-related Stress, Part II

Professor Matthew Zawadzki is with the Department of Psychological Sciences in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts. His research examines social psychological processes as applied to...

Bacteria Use the Physics of Twist to Measure Their Own Size and Shape

Theoretical physics Professor Ajay Gopinathan has been working over the past decade to model a submicroscopic mystery. Now, he and a team of colleagues have verified an important piece of the puzzle...