Cancer research fundraiser doubles its scope this weekend
Since 1994, UC San Diego’s Moores Cancer Center in La Jolla has helped put on a fundraising event to support cancer research. This year, it is expanding the event to two days for the first time and calling it Legends of Science and Surfing.
Previously, the annual Legends of Surfing Invitational has accumulated $12 million for cancer research since its inception.
This year’s event opens from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 12, with a Legends of Science symposium at the Estancia La Jolla Hotel & Spa highlighting internationally recognized experts as they discuss topics ranging from artificial intelligence and cancer to advances in oncology.
The next day from 7:30 a.m. to noon, surfers, scientists, cancer survivors and other community members will participate in the Legends of Surfing competition near Scripps Pier in La Jolla Shores.
Find out more at mcclegends.ucsd.edu.
Advocates for lowering speed limit gather at La Jolla Boulevard
Local advocates of lowering the speed limit on La Jolla Boulevard using a state law the San Diego City Council adopted held a demonstration along the street last week.
Earlier this year, the council voted to adopt Assembly Bill 43 citywide, starting with busy street segments in select neighborhoods including Pacific Beach and Mission Beach. The law gives local governments authority to reduce speed limits on roads contiguous to a business district and others deemed particularly unsafe for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Advocates for reducing the speed limit on La Jolla Boulevard from 35 mph using that law gathered there with signs and petitions Aug. 31.
“Our intent was simple — to send a clear and urgent message that our current speed limits are unsafe for our community,” said participant and Bird Rock resident Harry Bubbins, who is a board member of the La Jolla Community Planning Association. “With schools back in session and a holiday weekend [for Labor Day, Sept. 1] bringing hundreds more families to the beach, our streets become a dangerous mix of excited children, pedestrians and fast-moving cars. Our message is that the safety of our residents, especially our kids and seniors, must be the top priority. Lower the speed limit on La Jolla Boulevard. … We want to see official action before another crash occurs, not after.”
The petitions are intended to be delivered to appropriate city departments for consideration.
UCSD graduate Megan McArthur retires from NASA’s astronaut corps
UC San Diego graduate Megan McArthur has retired from NASA’s astronaut corps after a long career in which she traveled into space twice and became the first woman to pilot the SpaceX Dragon reusable spacecraft.
Astronaut Megan McArthur made two space missions for NASA. (NASA)
McArthur, 54, finished her career Aug. 29 after nearly 25 years at the space agency, NASA said. In recent years, she had been serving as chief science officer at Space Center Houston.
McArthur was chosen for astronaut training in July 2000, when she was working on a doctorate in oceanography at UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. She was awarded her doctorate two years later.
She steadily rose up the ranks and made her first trip into space in 2009 as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. Her second flight occurred in 2021 when she piloted herself and a crew on the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station. McArthur returned home about 200 days later. — The San Diego Union-Tribune
SIO scientist named director of marine resource observation program
UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla has named Mark Gold as the new director of California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations, the oceanographic and marine ecosystem monitoring and research program also known as CalCOFI.
Mark Gold is the new director of California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations. (Jeff Dillon)
CalCOFI, the longest-running program of its kind in the United States, is managed jointly by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and Scripps Oceanography. The program collects data to assess and manage major fisheries off the California coast, surveying marine life and monitoring indicators of ocean and environmental change.
CalCOFI is credited with helping to assess the accuracy of ocean and weather models, understand El Niño and La Niña fluctuations, support sustainable management of fishing and aquaculture, aid in the siting and development of offshore renewable energy, track ocean acidification and marine heat waves and more.
Salk scientists study post-drought plant recovery
In studying how a small flowering plant recovers from a drought, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla believe their findings could help them strategize how to make crops more resilient.
The plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, showed a response called drought recovery-induced immunity — a process in which the plant’s immune system protects it from pathogens rather than the plant focusing on an immediate return to growth upon receiving water again. The same response occurred in wild and domesticated tomatoes.
The findings were published Aug. 29 in the scientific journal Nature Communications.
The results reveal that drought recovery is a dynamic, not passive, process in which a plant’s immune system is reprogrammed, study senior author Joseph Ecker said in a statement.
“By defining the early genetic events that occur within minutes of rehydration, we can begin to uncover the molecular signals that coordinate stress recovery and explore how these mechanisms might be harnessed to improve crop resilience,” Ecker said.
Space flight can speed up stem cell aging, UCSD study says
Studies have indicated that when astronauts take off on space missions, they return with impacts to their immune function and length of telomeres, or regions of DNA sequences that protect the ends of chromosomes from becoming frayed or tangled. And a new study from researchers at UC San Diego’s Sanford Cell Institute says that isn’t all that changes.
The study concluded that when humans go to space, the aging of their hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells, or HSPCs, accelerates. Those cells, present in blood and bone marrow, are capable of forming mature red blood cells (which carry oxygen), platelets (which help stop bleeding) and white blood cells (which help fight infections).
As cells lose the ability to reproduce, they become more likely to experience DNA damage as the ends of their chromosomes show faster aging.
This development was detected by stem cell-tracking nanobioreactor systems placed in SpaceX commercial resupply missions to the International Space Station, according to a news release.
Hope for cell rejuvenation remains, however. When space-exposed cells returned to healthier environments, some of the damage started to reverse, researchers say.
See the full study at cell.com/cell-stem-cell/fulltext/S1934-5909(25)00270-X.
La Jolla scientists look at ‘dark matter’ of human genome
Scientists at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology recently published a first look at a key viral protein that has otherwise been seen as “dark matter” in the genome.
Scientists say 8% of the genome comes from viruses that got stranded there. Usually that 8% of our DNA is kept silent.
In a study published in Science Advances, LJI researchers revealed the first three-dimensional structure of a protein from one of those ancient human endogenous retroviruses, or HERVs.
Back in the evolutionary past, some of the proteins known as HERV-K Env studded the outside of the HERV-K retroviruses. But in modern humans, HERV-K Env proteins show up on the surface of certain tumor cells and in patients with autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases.
Understanding the HERV-K Env structure and how antibodies target it may prove useful for developing new diagnostic tools or therapies, the researchers said. ♦