LA JOLLA—If you’ve ever forgotten something mere seconds after it was at the forefront of your mind—the name of a dish you were about to order at a restaurant, for instance—then you know how important working memory is. This type of short-term recall is how people retain information for a matter of seconds or minutes to solve a problem or carry out a task, like the next step in a series of instructions. But, although it’s critical in our day-to-day lives, exactly how the brain manages working memory has been a mystery.
LA JOLLA—Getting computers to “think” like humans is the holy grail of artificial intelligence, but human brains turn out to be tough acts to follow. The human brain is a master of applying previously learned knowledge to new situations and constantly refining what’s been learned. This ability to be adaptive has been hard to replicate in machines.
LA JOLLA—When you touch a hot stove, your hand reflexively pulls away; if you miss a rung on a ladder, you instinctively catch yourself. Both motions take a fraction of a second and require no forethought. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute have mapped the physical organization of cells in the spinal cord that help mediate these and similar critical “sensorimotor reflexes.”
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute is excited to welcome Assistant Professor Christina Towers, a top researcher in the field of cancer biology. Towers will join Salk’s renowned NCI-designated Centro Oncológico to examine how cancer cells recycle both their own nutrients and the power-generating structures called mitochondria in order to survive. Her long-term goal is to improve the treatment options for cancer patients.
LA JOLLA—Salk Institute neuroscientists Edward Callaway, Sreekanth Chalasani, and Nancy Padilla Coreano have been named recipients in the 2020 round of grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to gain new insights into brain function.
LA JOLLA—Científico del personal del Salk Uri Manor, director de la Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Core Facility, recibirá $690.116 durante tres años de la Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) como uno de los 22 científicos de imagen de CZI, para desarrollar nuevas herramientas y conjuntos de datos de imagen de código abierto al tiempo que amplía su alcance educativo.
LA JOLLA—Salk Professors Susan Kaech y Alan Saghatelian have been named 2020 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Ciencia. Kaech and Saghatelian are among 489 new AAAS Fellows who were nominated by their peers for their distinguished efforts to advance science.
LA JOLLA—Salk Professors Joanne Chory, Joseph Ecker, Rusty Gage, Reuben Shaw y Kay Tye have been named to the Highly Cited Researchers list by Clarivate. The list identifies researchers who demonstrate “significant influence in their chosen field or fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers.” Professors Chory, Ecker and Gage have been named to this list every year since 2014, when the regular annual rankings began. This is Professor Tye’s fourth consecutive time and Professor Shaw’s second consecutive time receiving the designation. Joseph Nery, a research assistant II in the Ecker lab, was also included on the list.
LA JOLLA—Salk’s Harnessing Plants Initiative (HPI) will receive $30 million from the Bezos Earth Fund to advance efforts to increase the ability of crop plants, such as corn and soybeans, to capture and store atmospheric carbon via their roots in the soil. This work will explore carbon-sequestration mechanisms in six of the world’s most prevalent crop species with the goal of increasing the plants’ carbon-storage capacity. It complements an ongoing HPI project focused on identifying genes for increased carbon sequestration in model plants and then utilizing those genes to enhance carbon sequestration in crops.
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute has appointed molecular biologist Jesse Dixon to the rank of assistant professor for his significant work in uncovering how the human genome, the DNA blueprint for life, is organized in three-dimensional space inside of cells. The appointment was based on recommendations by Salk faculty, and approved by Salk President Rusty Gage y la Junta Directiva del Instituto.
SAN DIEGO and LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute and Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE) today announced a new project to advance plant-based carbon capture and sequestration research, education and implementation to help address the climate crisis. Sempra Energy is donating $2 million to the Salk Institute to help fund the five-year project.
LA JOLLA—Mientras la gente en todo el mundo espera con ansias la promesa de una vacuna eficaz para poner fin a la pandemia de coronavirus que ha cobrado la vida de más de 220,000 estadounidenses y más de 1.1 millones a nivel mundial, es importante recordar un momento en que el mundo se enfrentó a desafíos similares y, a través de la investigación científica, encontró respuestas que cambiaron el curso de la historia. El 28 de octubre, el Instituto Salk honra los logros de nuestro fundador, Jonas Salk, en su 106° cumpleaños.
Next week, the Department of Homeland Security will review the contents of a proposal, ICEB-2019-0006, issued by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau (ICE), that seeks to limit the stay of an international scholar in the US to either two or four years. The potentially devastating impact of this proposal, if implemented, is of such magnitude that the undersigned leaders of San Diego’s biomedical research institutions are standing together to voice alarm.
LA JOLLA—Profesor Asistente del Instituto Salk Dannielle Engle has been awarded a New Investigator Award from the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP) to examine how tobacco use promotes cellular changes that lead to pancreatic cancer. The TRDRP funds research that “enhances understanding of tobacco use, prevention and cessation, the social, economic and policy-related aspects of tobacco use, and tobacco-related diseases in California,” according to their website. Engle will receive over $1 million over three years to develop new models for examining how tobacco carcinogens (cancer-causing substances) lead to tumor development and metastasis.
LA JOLLA and PALO ALTO, Calif.—The Salk Institute and BridgeBio Pharma, Inc. (Nasdaq: BBIO) today announced a three-year collaboration agreement formed to advance cutting-edge academic discoveries in genetically driven diseases toward therapeutic applications. Under the partnership, BridgeBio will help fund research programs from Salk’s world-renowned innovative cancer research, with the eventual goal of developing new therapeutics for patients in need.
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute lost a good friend and scientific partner when Paul F. Glenn passed away on September 29, 2020, at his home in Montecito, California. He was 89.
LA JOLLA—Imagine that you’re late for work and desperately searching for your car keys. You’ve looked all over the house but cannot seem to find them anywhere. All of a sudden you realize your keys have been sitting right in front of you the entire time. Why didn’t you see them until now?
LA JOLLA—Profesor Asistente del Instituto Salk Edward Stites ha sido nombrado/a NIH Director’s New Innovator for 2020 as part of the National Institutes of Health’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program. The award “supports unusually innovative research from early career investigators,” according to the NIH and provides $1.5 million for a 5-year project. For his project, Stites will use mathematical and biological approaches to identify strategies to convert failed therapeutics into effective agents.
Joanne Chory, quien fue pionera en la aplicación de la genética molecular a la biología vegetal y transformó nuestra comprensión de la fotosíntesis, recibirá el Premio Pearl Meister Greengard 2020, el máximo galardón de Rockefeller que reconoce a mujeres científicas destacadas. Chory es titular de la Cátedra Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman en Biología Vegetal y directora del Laboratorio de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas del Instituto Salk. También es Investigadora del Instituto Médico Howard Hughes. Frances Beinecke, expresidenta del Natural Resources Defense Council, entregará el premio en una ceremonia virtual organizada por Rockefeller el 22 de octubre.
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute will establish a world-class San Diego Nathan Shock Center (SD-NSC), a consortium with Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego), to study cellular and tissue aging in humans. The Center will be funded by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health expected to total $5 million over the next 5 years (NIA grant number P30AG068635).
