USC News

Menu Tuesday, March 21, 2023 53° Mostly Cloudy

Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience

Search
HealthScience/Technology
Jeremiah Choate explains his research to Myron Goodman
Graduate student Jeremiah Choate explains his research to Myron Goodman, left, during the grand opening of three state-of-the-art research facilities at the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience. (USC Photo/Gus Ruelas)

USC Michelson Center celebrates 3 state-of-the-art research facilities

The grand opening ceremonies celebrate the latest cutting-edge facilities at the center, which brings together researchers from the university’s engineering and medical schools and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

HealthScience/Technology
imaging insulin producing pancreatic cells
Different imaging approaches provide unique layers of information on cellular structure. Soft X-ray tomography provides a map of organelles within an intact cell, while cryo-electron tomography provides high-resolution windows into specific cellular neighborhoods within a cell. (Illustration/Katya Kadyshevskaya)

To better understand diabetes, scientists gaze inside insulin-producing pancreatic cells

A USC-led team has developed advanced imaging techniques that allow for a uniquely detailed glimpse inside the body’s insulin factories.

Science/Technology
GABAB receptor protein brain activity
A nerve cell synapse with structures GABAB, a neurotransmitter receptor protein, captured in four different conformations (background) and in the active state (close-up) with molecules (orange and magenta) bound to it. (Illustration/Yekaterina Kadyshevskaya)

Scientists discover how a protein that calms brain activity works

The findings from USC researchers provide a clear path to uncovering new drugs to control addiction, pain and neurological disorders such as epilepsy and muscle spasticity.

Science/TechnologyUniversity
Steve Kay
Steve Kay is director of the MESH (Medicine, Engineering, Sciences and Humanities) Academy, director of the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience and a Provost Professor of Neurology, Biomedical Engineering and Biological Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. (Photo/Max Gerber)

Steve Kay recognized for 25 years of studying circadian rhythms in plants

The decorated USC professor received an award from the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms for decades of research into the mustard plant.

HealthScience/Technology
postpartum bleeding drug activation
Some important conditions are treated by misoprostol, including ulcers, bleeding inflammation, pain and labor. Illustrated here is misoprostol in the binding site of the hormone prostaglandin E2 receptor 3. (Illustration/Yekaterina Kadyshevskaya)

Better drug to save mothers’ lives during childbirth may be on the way

Scientists at the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience and Stanford University take first step toward a safer drug for reducing postpartum bleeding.