This invention is a novel model that uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) information to more accurately determine the irradiation area using proton beam therapy (PBT) for oncological treatment.

 An increasing body of research has shown that alternations in RNA splicing are involved in a number of human diseases, particularly cancer. Drug regulation of splicing has become an interesting new target for therapeutic discovery. A number of drug discovery efforts aimed at developing splicing-modulating small-molecules are being tested in clinic trials for cancer.

Just in the Los Angeles area alone, USGS database shows a 95.23% change of a major earthquake occurring. While there are a variety of seismic devices already installed for the protection of high value structures, other customizable, cost efficient devices currently don’t exist for a wide range of other structures such as apartments, residential homes, or event moderate to high value equipment and artifacts. University of California has invented a novel material and method for creating cost efficient seismic protection devices for all types of such structures.

The invention describes an Electro-Optical instrument and a computational model for functional scanning of human body and recovering its chromophores (water, lipid, oxygenated hemoglobin, and deoxygenated hemoglobin). It is a low cost portable system that integrates frequency domain and continuous wave domain for real time spectroscopic imaging of human tissue.

The ability to accurately quantify gas volumes in liquid flows has important applications in environmental science and industry. For example, environmental processes that significantly contribute to changes in earth’s climate, such as methane seeps from the sea floor and the exchange of gases between the ocean and atmosphere at the sea surface, demand precise sensors that are small and sensitive enough to measure the ratio of liquids and gases in these bubbly mixtures. These measurements also play a critical role in the operational efficiency of a wide variety of different engineering processes. Applications include, the monitoring the optimal amount of bubbled oxygen in the treatment of waste water and sewage, and the oil and gas industry, especially in undersea oil pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico alone, have spent billions of dollars annually on added refinement techniques to remove seawater that could be preventable if sensors were able to measure the ratio of crude oil, seawater and gas as the mixture is pumped through pipelines. These challenges exist in both research and industry because the current manufacturing process for making the needed gas/liquid probes have significant cost constraints. Clearly, there is a need for a new and cost-effective technology to produce these probes.

UCLA researchers have developed a novel method to place electrodes for deep brain stimulation. The method is significantly more precise than current methods, thereby increasing treatment efficacy and potentially eliminating repeat surgeries.

A fully automated algorithm to determine the location and curvatures of an object’s surface from 3D fluorescence images.

96 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} The CRISPR-Cas system is now understood to confer bacteria and archaea with acquired immunity against phage and viruses. CRISPR-Cas systems consist of Cas proteins, which are involved in acquisition, targeting and cleavage of foreign DNA or RNA, and a CRISPR array, which includes direct repeats flanking short spacer sequences that guide Cas proteins to their targets. The programmable nature of these systems has facilitated their use as a versatile technology that is revolutionizing the field of genome manipulation. There is a need in the art for additional CRISPR-Cas systems with improved cleavage and manipulation under a variety of conditions and ones that are particularly thermostable under those conditions.     UC researchers discovered a new type of RNA-guided endonuclease (GeoCas9) and variants of GeoCas9.  GeoCas9 was found to be stable and enzymatically active in a temperature range of from 15°C to 75°C and has extended lifetime in human plasma.  With evidence that GeoCas9 maintains cleavage activity at mesophilic temperatures, the ability of GeoCas9 to edit mammalian genomes was then assessed.  The researchers found that when comparing the editing efficiency for both GeoCas9 and SpyCas9, similar editing efficiencies by both proteins were observed, demonstrating that GeoCas9 is an effective alternative to SpyCas9 for genome editing in mammalian cells.  Similar to CRISPR-Cas9, GeoCas9 enzymes are expected to have a wide variety of applications in genome editing and nucleic acid manipulation.