The CRY1:CLOCK:BMAL1 sits at the core of the integrated transcription-translation feedback loop that regulates the expression of proteins that are dependent upon circadian rhythms. Disruption of circadian rhythms has been linked to altered cell homeostasis and diseases. 

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Brief description not available

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed methods for creating compositions with the potential to prevent or treat cancer or metabolic diseases. These compositions combine conjugates with covalently linked HDAC inhibitors and retinoids.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common cause of chronic liver disease in the United States. It can be broadly sub-classified into nonalcoholic fatty liver (NAFL), which is thought to have minimal risk of progression to cirrhosis, and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which is thought to have an increased risk of progression to cirrhosis. The current diagnostic gold standard for differentiating whether a patient with NAFLD has NAFL versus NASH is liver biopsy. However, liver biopsy is an invasive procedure, which is limited by sampling variability, cost, and may be complicated by morbidity and even death, although rare. Accurate, non-invasive, biomarkers for the detection of liver disease and liver disease progression e.g., progression to NASH, are currently also not available.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a condition in which excess fat is stored in the liver, though not caused by heavy alcohol use. NAFLD is one of the most common causes of liver disease in the United States. NAFLD it typically asymptomatic but when NAFLD advances, it can result in the development of NASH (Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis) where inflammation and fibrosis are widespread in the liver, resulting in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and liver cirrhosis. Mechanisms of NAFLD progression are poorly understood. Experts estimate that about 20% of people with NAFLD have NASH. Between 30% and 40% of adults in the United States have NAFLD. About 3% to 12% of adults in the United States have NASH. There are no existing FDA‐approved therapies for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). NAFLD it typically asymptomatic but it can progress to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and liver cirrhosis. Mechanisms of NAFLD progression are poorly understood. There are many FDA‐approved therapies for type 2 diabetes, including metformin, insulin, sulfonylureas, Glp‐1 receptor agonists, Dpp‐4 inhibitors, and Sglt2 inhibitors. These drugs work through diverse mechanisms such as increasing insulin secretion (sulfonylureas, Glp‐1 receptor agonists, Dpp‐4 inhibitors), direct insulin replacement (insulin), reducing glucose production by the liver (metformin), and stimulating excretion of glucose into urine (Sglt2 inhibitors).

Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), characterized by hepatic steatosis with inflammation and liver damage, has become the leading cause of transplant and liver associated death. Moreover, numerous studies suggest that hepatocellular death is the key event triggering progression to fibrosis and cirrhosis for NASH and perhaps other liver diseases.  In normal liver, hepatocyte apoptosis plays a key role in liver homeostasis, maintaining equilibrium between the loss and replacement of hepatocytes. However, pathological conditions such as viral infection, alcoholic or nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and physical injury, lead to extensive hepatocyte apoptosis and liver damage. While inflammation contributes to the pericellular fibrosis at an early stage, sustained liver damage leads to scarring, bridging fibrosis and subsequent development of cirrhosis. Moreover, hepatocellular death is the major contributor to the pathogenesis of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Therefore, understanding the molecular mechanisms by which hepatocellular death is controlled may lead to new treatments for liver diseases.

The global epidemic of type 2 diabetes is increasing at an alarming rate in both Westernized and developing countries. In the United States alone, it is estimated that there are at least 30 million people with this disease. Metabolic syndrome is 2 to 3 times more prevalent than type 2 diabetes and is usually the precursor state for this disease, indicating that this type 2 diabetes epidemic will not abate in the near future. Insulin resistance is a key etiologic feature of the metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes, and obesity is far and away the most common cause of insulin resistance in humans. There is a well-known parallel global epidemic of obesity, and the great majority of type 2 diabetic patients are obese. Therefore, it seems logical to conclude that the obesity epidemic is the underlying driver of the type 2 diabetes epidemic. Unfortunately, at the present time there are a limited number of therapeutics available as way of preventing or treating obesity.

Researchers at UCI have developed a comprehensive platform, Polaris, for personalized diabetes management. By combining standard blood glucose monitoring with activity tracking, Polaris provides users with real-time suggestions that encourage treatment adherence and promote healthy behaviors to better mitigate their symptoms.

UCLA researchers in the Department of Surgery have developed a gene therapy to prevent dysmyelination (and other CNS abnormalities) as a result of arginase deficiency.

UCLA researchers in the Department of Surgery have developed a gene therapy to treat carbamoyl phosphate synthetase 1 deficiency.

UCLA researchers in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Molecular and Medicinal Pharmacology have identified several small molecule reagents to treat Cushing disease.

UCLA researchers in the Department of Medicine and Surgery have developed a novel therapeutic for the prevention of late inflammatory complications in severe acute pancreatitis patients.

A mosaic of cross-phyla chemical interactions occurs between all metazoans and their microbiomes. In humans, the gut harbors the heaviest microbial load, but many organs, particularly those with a mucosal surface, associate with highly adapted and evolved microbial consortia. The microbial residents within these organ systems are increasingly well characterized, yielding a good understanding of human microbiome composition. However, we have yet to elucidate the full chemical impact the microbiome exerts on an animal and the breadth of the chemical diversity it contributes. A number of molecular families are known to be shaped by the microbiome including short-chain fatty acids, indoles, aromatic amino acid metabolites, complex polysaccharides, and host sphingolipids and bile acids. These metabolites profoundly affect host physiology and are being explored for their roles in both health and disease. The synthesis of bile acids takes place in the liver and recent research has shown that bile acids can act as signaling molecules and activate a number of molecules. A primary focus has been on the Farnesoid X receptor (FXR) which plays an important role in bile acid synthesis and in regulation of glucose, lipid and energy metabolism.

Fatty liver disease (or steatohepatis) is often associated with excessive alcohol intake or obesity, but also has other causes such as metabolic deficiencies including insulin resistance and diabetes. The causation of a fatty liver results from triglyceride fat accumulation in vacuoles of the liver cells resulting in decreased liver function, and possibly leading to cirrhosis or hepatic cancer. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) represents a spectrum of disease occurring in the absence of alcohol abuse. There is a clinical need for a simple test to identify individuals with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in the population. While circulating lipids have been used for this purpose, the large number of analytes within the human lipidome makes it cumbersome to utilize this approach for high throughput screening.

Diabetes is a major disease affecting all populations and age groups, and society as a whole. All therapies for diabetes are based on achieving close glucose control. Close glucose control achieved by sufficient and timely administration of therapy has been shown to reduce the destructive “long-term complications” of diabetes, such as retinal damage, kidney failure, amputations, and cardiovascular damage, as well as debilitating and life-threatening short-term hypoglycemia. However, attainment of close control requires a means of glucose monitoring and means for correction of glucose imbalances such as administration of insulin, pharmaceuticals, diet adjustment, and exercise, based on the monitored glucose concentration.

Primary liver cancer, with the majority being hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), is now the second leading cause of cancer mortality and the fifth most common cancer worldwide, claiming approximately 800,000 life every year. HCC is a chemotherapy resistant tumor with limited treatment options including surgical resection, liver transplantation and local ablation at the early stages. Sorafenib, a multi-kinase inhibitor, remains a first-line systemic drug for advanced HCC even with poor outcomes, and similar low therapeutic benefits were reported for regorafenib, lenvatinib, and cabozantinib. Over 100 clinical trials that tested other compounds or approaches have failed to show therapeutic benefit to HCC patients. Immunotherapy by blocking inhibitory pathways in T lymphocytes, such as the PD-L1/PD-1 axis, is being widely tested in various solid tumors. Notably, this emerging therapeutic approach is already in clinical trials for advanced HCC in multi-centers around the globe. Two latest reports on open-label, non-randomized, phase 1/2 trials with pembrolizumab or nivolumab indicated manageable safety in advanced HCC patients with or without prior sorafenib treatment, albeit with very limited therapeutic benefits observed so far. The outcome of immunotherapy for liver cancer can be compounded by the unique immunotolerant microenvironment in the liver. A variety of clinical trials are ongoing to evaluate combination of immune checkpoint inhibitors or with other drugs, without clear justification or support by preclinical data.

UCLA researchers have developed a novel method for enriching, expanding, and maturing populations of skeletal muscle progenitor cells (SMPCs) from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs).

These highly specific biomarkers distinguish potentially malignant mucinous cysts from benign nonmucinous cysts in the pancreas to help diagnose precursor lesions of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. The biomarkers can be detected through enzymatic assays with exceptional accuracy and sensitivity.

UCLA researchers in the Departments of Medicine and Human Genetics have identified a sequence of long, non-coding RNA that plays a role in the regulation of intracellular lipogenesis and holds potential for diagnosing and treating metabolic diseases, including NAFLD and NASH.

UCLA researchers in the Departments of Medicine and Cardiology have identified a novel gene and pathway in the regulation of insulin sensitivity and discovered an inhibitor of this gene useful for treating AGPAT5-related diseases.

This invention proposes the first pharmacological treatment to prevent the onset of Type I diabetes by preventing beta cell destruction. 

Medical devices are susceptible to contamination by harmful microbes, such as bacteria and fungi, which form biofilms on device surfaces. These biofilms are often resistant to antibiotics and other current treatments, resulting in over 2 million people per year suffering from diseases related to these contaminating microbes. Death rates for many of these diseases are high, often exceeding 50%. Researchers at UCI have developed a novel anti-bacterial and anti-fungal biocomposite that incorporates a nanopillared surface structure that can be applied as a coating to medical devices.

The obesity epidemic currently afflicting the US and other developed countries has resulted in a marked increase in the incidence of the metabolic syndrome and its associated pathologies, including nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), estimated to affect 30% of Americans. Although NAFLD is characterized by lipid droplet buildup in hepatocytes, it is not accompanied by liver damage, inflammation, and fibrosis unless combined with other risk factors, such as endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress or mitochondrial dysfunction. In the context of simple, nonsymptomatic liver steatosis, ER stress or mitochondrial dysfunction trigger nonalcoholic steatohepatits (NASH), a serious disease that can progress to liver cirrhosis, resulting in loss of liver function, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), one of the most deadly cancers. The obesity epidemic currently afflicting the US and other developed countries has resulted in a marked increase in the incidence of the metabolic syndrome and its associated pathologies, including nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), estimated to affect 30% of Americans. Although NAFLD is characterized by lipid droplet buildup in hepatocytes, it is not accompanied by liver damage, inflammation, and fibrosis unless combined with other risk factors, such as endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress or mitochondrial dysfunction. In the context of simple, nonsymptomatic liver steatosis, ER stress or mitochondrial dysfunction trigger nonalcoholic steatohepatits (NASH), a serious disease that can progress to liver cirrhosis, resulting in loss of liver function, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), one of the most deadly cancers.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed a method for diagnosing an individual patient’s risk of inflammatory disease based on glycan profiling of high density lipoprotein (HDL). The resulting profile is then used to recommend a treatment program of dietary, lifestyle, or pharmaceutical interventions (or combination thereof), to improve health and decrease the risk of inflammation-induced disease by modulating the patient’s HDL glycosylation pattern.