UC San Diego faculty are consistently at the forefront of tackling pressing global challenges through innovative research across a wide cross-section of fields, including engineering, health and technology.<\/p>\n
Engineers at UC San Diego have developed a method to grow and repeatedly harvest pharmaceuticals from plants under space-like conditions<\/a>, without destroying the plants or generating large amounts of waste. The research addresses a key challenge of long-duration space travel: many drugs degrade more quickly in space, and more than half of the medications stocked aboard the International Space Station have been found to expire within three years \u2014 barely enough time for a round trip to Mars, which can take about 200 days each way. The findings also have potential applications for low-cost pharmaceutical production in resource-limited areas on Earth.<\/p>\n In the fight against cancer, UC San Diego researchers have developed MutationProjector, an artificial intelligence model that translates a tumor’s complex genetic profile into predictions about how that cancer may respond to treatment<\/a>. Trained on genomic data from more than 30,000 tumors across 10 solid cancer types, the model connects cancer mutations to the biological pathways that drive treatment response. The model was designed not only to make predictions, but also to provide insight into why those predictions are made, especially important in precision oncology, where clinicians need to understand how tumor genotypes relate to treatment decisions.<\/p>\n Further advancing AI research, UC San Diego is both equipping students to build the next generation of AI systems and deploying AI tools to support how students learn<\/a>. In fall 2025, the Jacobs School of Engineering launched a new undergraduate major in artificial intelligence, among the first of its kind in the U.S., grounding students in the mathematical and computational foundations of modern AI while also examining its ethical and societal implications. In addition, the SmartLearning Hub project, a special initiative from the Laboratory for Emerging Intelligence at UC San Diego\u2019s Jacobs School of Engineering, has developed an AI tutor currently in use across courses in biology, economics, data science and nanoengineering.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the area of brain health, UC San Diego researchers have found that a simple blood test can predict a woman’s risk of developing dementia as many as 25 years before symptoms appear<\/a>. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, analyzed blood samples from 2,766 cognitively healthy women who were enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study in the late 1990s and followed for up to 25 years. The researchers found that higher levels of p-tau217 \u2014 a protein that reflects early brain changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease \u2014 were strongly associated with future mild cognitive impairment and dementia, with risk increasing as biomarker levels rose. These findings suggest blood-based tests could help detect dementia risk earlier, opening the door to prevention and monitoring long before memory problems begin.<\/p>\n In addition to the recent CWUR ranking, UC San Diego has consistently achieved top spots on various national and international lists. In June, the university was ranked No. 23 in the world and No. 15 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report Best Global Rankings<\/a>. In the most recent ranking, UC San Diego received the top spot (No. 1) for Best Universities for Gastroenterology and Hepatology.<\/p>\n For more about UC San Diego\u2019s rankings, visit our Campus Profile.<\/a> For additional information about CWUR, including detailed methodology, please visit the organization’s website<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UC San Diego faculty are consistently at the forefront of tackling pressing global challenges through innovative research across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-400789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}