UCLA Life Scientists Win ‘Breakthrough’ Award

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V. Reggie Edgerton, UCLA distinguished professor of Integrative Biology and Physiology and Yury Gerasimenko, a UCLA researcher in Integrative Biology and Physiology and director of the laboratory of movement physiology at Russia’s St. Petersburg’s Pavlov Institute are among the four recipients of the 2011 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award for a new procedure that uses direct electrical stimulation to give spinal injury patients back some voluntary movement.

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UCLA scientists find H1N1 flu virus prevalent in animals in Africa

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Thomas B. Smith, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and colleagues, recently discovered the first evidence of the H1N1 virus in animals in Africa. In one village in northern Cameroon, a staggering 89 percent of the pigs studied had been exposed to the H1N1 virus, commonly known as the swine flu.

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UCLA psychologists discover a gene’s link to optimism, self-esteem

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Shelley E. Taylor, distinguished professor in the department of Psychology, is senior author of new research that has identified for the first time, a particular gene’s link to optimism, self-esteem, and “mastery,” the belief that one has control over one’s own life— three critical psychological resources for coping well with stress and depression.

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How to Close the Race Gap in H.I.V.?

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Vickie Mays, UCLA professor of psychology, professor of health services in the School of Public Health, and director of the UCLA Center for Research, Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities, addressed how sex education and intervention programs can potentially lower the incidence of HIV among young gay African-American men.

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School Dangers and Cyber-bullying

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A column in today’s Los Angeles Times about the dangers kids face at school cites a study led by UCLA psychology professor Jaana Juvonen that found that nearly three in four teenagers had been bullied online during a 12-month period.

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Recent NIH grant funds UCLA HIV research

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Jerome Zack, director of the UCLA Center for Aids Research and UCLA professor in the department microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics, and his research team were recently awarded an NIH grant to develop medication that, in a limited number of treatments, could completely rid infected individuals of HIV.

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Waging war against the superbug

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UCLA Today profiles Jeffrey H. Miller, Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics, cutting-edge scientist and educator, who has been working on what has become a major public health crisis in the United States– the steep rise in drug-resistant infections.

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