Archive for category: Alumni & Friends

Image of Judith Baca, UCLA professor emeritus of Chicana and Chicano and Central American studies and of world arts and cultures, at the unveiling of her mural “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.” Image credit: Don Liebig/ASUCLAImage credit: Don Liebig/ASUCLA

New mural captures campus history and UCLA’s future

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Renowned artist and professor Judith Baca created the nearly 80-foot artwork
Image of Judith Baca, UCLA professor emeritus of Chicana and Chicano and Central American studies and of world arts and cultures, at the unveiling of her mural “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.” Image credit: Don Liebig/ASUCLA

Judith Baca, UCLA professor emeritus of Chicana and Chicano and Central American studies and of world arts and cultures, at the unveiling of her mural “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.” Image credit: Don Liebig/ASUCLA

By Mike Fricano |

The ask was bold and befitting a Bruin like professor and artist Judith Baca: depict the history, present and future of UCLA and the land where it resides, in a mural.

In a special evening ceremony on Friday, April 1, several hundred people gathered to celebrate the culmination of nearly three years of work, as Baca unveiled “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.” The nearly 80-foot mural is on the north side of Ackerman Union as part of the Wescom Student Terrace.

The mural, which translates into English as “The Memory of Earth: UCLA,” is made up of three 26-foot-long glass panels. The left panel portrays Westwood — long before UCLA — with a shimmering light-blue outline of Royce Hall where it sits today. In the center, a circle of dozens of people including faculty, alumni, civil rights and social justice leaders whom Baca called her heroes and said represent the diverse and lesser-known history of campus and the land.

The middle panel is built around a trinity of women: Toypurina, a Tongva woman who opposed the colonial rule by Spanish missionaries in California in the late 1700s; Angela Davis, civil rights activist and former UCLA faculty member, who was fired by the University of California Board of Regents for her association with communism; and Dolores Huerta, the iconic labor leader who worked with César Chávez on behalf of farmworkers.

Image of The central panel of “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.”

The central panel of “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.” Image credit: Don Liebig/ASUCLA

“We hope in the future that students will be able to sit here [in this courtyard] and be able to find out who these people are and what did they do,” said Baca, who retired last year, after years as a professor of Chicana and Chicano and Central American studies and a professor of world arts and cultures.

To situate the people in their proper historical context, the mural captures scenes from events such as the Black Lives Matter student demonstrations in 2020, protests against the Vietnam War in 1976 and also a depiction of the Manzanar War Relocation Center.

The future of the campus is on the right, with rhizomes (long, narrow channel-like roots) filled with the faces of other significant people — many of them faculty — who are doing the work to bring UCLA into the future and ensuring that UCLA remains in harmony with the land.

Baca told the audience that the third panel was designed “to take the knowledge that comes from the university and [spread] it widely.”

Image of Desirae Barragan, who is a registered member of the Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians, Kizh Nation, at the unveiling of the mural “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.”

Desirae Barragan, who is a registered member of the Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians, Kizh Nation, at the unveiling of the mural “La Memoria de la Tierra: UCLA.” Barragan is a descendent of the person depicted in the center, Toypurina, a Tongva/Kizh woman who helped lead an uprising against Spanish missionaries. Image credit: Don Liebig/ASUCLA

The mural is the result of a partnership among the UCLA Centennial Committee; Associated Students UCLA, or ASUCLA, a nonprofit association that drives student services and activities throughout campus; and the Digital Mural Lab from the Social and Public Art Resource Center, or SPARC. It was in 1976 that Baca and two other artists founded SPARC, a Venice-based arts center that creates, preserves and hosts programs about community-based public artwork. The mural was created with financial support from Wescom Credit Union.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

Image of Carly DanielsCourtesy Carly Daniels

How a COVID-19 vaccine arrived quickly and without compromise

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Bruin Carly Daniels, who leads the Pfizer scientists developing vaccines for pneumonia and the coronavirus, always remembers that patients are waiting.

Image of Carly Daniels

Courtesy of Carly Daniels

By Dan Gordon ’85

As senior principal scientist and group leader at Pfizer in St. Louis, Carly Daniels Ph.D. ’14 leads teams of scientists who develop methods for Pfizer biotherapeutics, particularly vaccines, and then test them for quality throughout the manufacturing process. Her team worked intensively on the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, and in addition to overseeing those efforts, Daniels participated in assembling and organizing data sent to regulatory agencies in more than 100 countries toward the vaccine’s authorization for use. Daniels, who earned her doctorate at UCLA in biochemistry and molecular biology, also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration before joining Pfizer in 2015.

When Pfizer and BioNTech agreed to work together on the COVID-19 vaccine in March 2020, as the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic, how did your life change?

Things changed pretty quickly. It became clear that a lot of the work would be done in St. Louis, where my team and I are based. And a huge part of the Pfizer–St. Louis population raised their hands and said, “I’m in. I’ll do whatever is needed.” We weren’t able to push aside other projects, but we pivoted to prioritizing the COVID vaccine, working longer hours to get things done.

No one expected a vaccine to be ready in less than a year — vaccine development usually takes a decade or more. To what do you attribute the speed?

Certainly at the beginning, a lot of us thought, my gosh, we can’t do this so quickly. But a huge part of why it went so much faster is that with traditional vaccine and medicine development, everything is done in sequence. As you scale up, the manufacturing changes, and you invest in increasingly larger equipment and infrastructure. And you wait to see how a clinical trial goes before moving on to the next stage. In this case, our leadership said we’re going to do everything at once, in parallel, and accept the risk. We were not resource-limited, which was very helpful. We had thousands of people working on this across Pfizer and BioNTech, as well as through various partners. Everyone worked longer hours and weekends, knowing how critical this was. My understanding is that it was also all hands on deck at the regulatory agencies. They get tons of submissions, which can take time to work through. But with the COVID-focused filings, they could prioritize those.

Pie chart showing Number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the United States as of November 7, 2021, by vaccine manufacturer.

Number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the United States as of November 7, 2021, by vaccine manufacturer. 251,090,534 Pfizer-BioNTech (58.5% of total); 161,390,613 Moderna (37.6%); 15,917,693 J&J/Janssen (3.7%); 528,784 not identified (0.01%). Source: Statista

Much misinformation surrounds the COVID-19 vaccines. What’s a misconception you would like to correct?

One of the biggest ones I have heard is that the speed with which we were able to do things meant cutting corners. The reasons we could go at the pace we did were the changes we made to how we would do typical development and the prioritizing by the regulators. We still had to hit all of the same high quality standards internally, and with the regulatory agencies, those standards did not change at all.

The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were first to use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which has been heralded as a faster way to develop vaccines and other therapeutics. Did that play a role in the speed?

That definitely helped. It’s easier and faster to make, and a huge part of getting to that final commercial process is to be at a scale where you can produce the supply you need. We’ve already seen announcements from companies starting to look at clinical trials for mRNA vaccines to address other types of infectious diseases as well as other therapeutic areas, including different types of cancer. Our motivator is always that the patients are waiting, and it does seem like mRNA is going to cut down on the time it takes to get medicines and vaccines to patients.

 

“Working on these molecules that prevent disease can impact millions of people.” 

— Carly Daniels

 

Your team has received FDA approval for another blockbuster vaccine, Prevnar20, to prevent invasive pneumococcal disease and pneumonia. What impact do you expect to see?

I have worked on that for several years, and that approval was great cause for celebration. We should see a huge impact. We’ve seen it from prior iterations of Prevnar and other vaccines that address other infectious diseases. It’s incredible when you can essentially pinpoint the decline in the prevalence of some of these invasive or infectious diseases lining up with when these vaccines started to be introduced into the population.

Graphic showing Vaccination rankings, as reported by countries

Vaccination rankings, as reported by countries (Last Updated Nov. 7). U.S. 57.21% of population fully vaccinated, 74th in the world, behind 73 other countries and territories, such as UAE 87.51% in 3rd, Portugal 87.39% (4th), Spain 79.96% (8th), South Korea 76.66% (14th), Canada 74.79% (21st), Japan 74.07% (22nd), Australia 67.02% (38th), El Salvador 59.53% (63rd), Morocco 59.30% (64th) and Brazil 57.79% (72nd). Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

How did you become interested in science, and vaccines in particular?

I’ve been interested in science from a pretty young age, mostly thanks to my dad. He is an entomologist, so he works with bugs, which is not my area of interest. As a grad student at UCLA, I became interested in medicine development. I worked in the laboratory of Professor Joseph Loo in the biochemistry department. He had experience in industry, and was really encouraging and open to helping me explore different career paths. We collaborated with Amgen, and after getting a look at some of the work they did, I started to see that a lot of the techniques we were using in grad school were being used in industry and could be a part of developing medicines that would help tons of people. After joining Pfizer, I quickly got involved in one of our other vaccines and gained the perspective that working on these molecules that prevent disease can impact millions of people. This was before the pandemic; now, I guess it’s in the billions.

How did your Ph.D. experience prepare you for the work you’re doing now?

One of the things that drew me to UCLA was that all of the professors in the department were super approachable. When I went there to interview, it just felt different from other places. You could tell how much collaboration there was, both among the labs within the department and across the medical campus. Getting to collaborate with different groups on campus, as well as with Amgen, City of Hope and UC Riverside, prepared me for Pfizer, where you’re constantly working on cross-functional project teams, communicating with people about your work and trying to understand theirs.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu.

Image of Carlos Galván and familyCourtesy of Carlos Galván

‘You belong’: How first-gen students have succeeded in STEM

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By Linda Wang

UCLA faculty and doctoral students reflect on challenges and offer advice to undergraduates

Image of Carlos Galván with his family

Carlos Galván, a doctoral student in the molecular biology interdepartmental program at UCLA, says his immigrant parents’ work ethic shaped his drive to succeed. Photo credit: Courtesy of Carlos Galván

UCLA prides itself on the fact that nearly a third of its undergraduate students will be the first in their families to earn a four-year college degree. Still, navigating the university experience can be a challenge for many first-generation students, and particularly for those in STEM fields, where they remain widely underrepresented.

One of the first things these students should recognize is that they’re not alone, says Carlos Galván, a STEM doctoral student. “There are resources on campus, but you have to put yourself out there and be willing to reach out for help.”

Here, Galván and other students and faculty members from the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA share their experiences as first-generation STEM students for National First-Generation College Celebration Day and National STEM Day. Their stories touch on familiar struggles — from dealing with financial hardships and “imposter syndrome” to the burden of “making it” for one’s family — and offer encouragement and advice on how first-gen students can make the most of their academic journey.

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Song Li 

Professor and chair of bioengineering, UCLA Samueli School of Engineering
Professor of medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Image of Song Li.

Courtesy of Song Li

Alma mater: Peking University (bachelor’s in mechanics and master’s in biomechanics) and UC San Diego (doctorate in bioengineering)

Hometown: Liuzhou, China

Song Li grew up in China in the 1960s, a period in which there was significant disruption in the higher education system as a result of the Cultural Revolution. After the country began to reform and reopen in the 1980s, Li gained admission to Peking University, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In the early 1990s, he moved to the U.S. to further his graduate studies.

What challenges did you face as a first-generation student?
My parents encouraged me to pursue higher education, but I had no clue about college life and future opportunities. I was overwhelmed my first year and was juggling many activities and contending with various challenges. However, I gradually learned to manage my time and focus on my classes, and I found my passion for doing research. To relieve the financial burden, I worked as a private tutor during summers to make money for traveling expenses, graduate school tests and school application fees.

What advice do you have for other first-generation students?
The general advice is to pursue a career you’re interested in and good at. I recognize, though, that first-generation college students might face additional hurdles like the lack of mentorship and financial obligations. Still, if you have a dream, go for it, seek advice and find mentors who can help you succeed. Now that I’m in a position to help, I’m eager to promote diversity and inclusion in my lab and classes, and I try to mentor and give career advice to first-generation students the way a parent would.

► See Song Li’s faculty page

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Aileen Nava

Doctoral student in human genetics
UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center trainee

Image of Aileen Nava

Courtesy of Aileen Nava

Alma mater: California State University, Fullerton (bachelor’s in biological science, cell and developmental biology)

Hometown: Huntington Beach, California

Aileen Nava’s younger sister suffered a cardiac arrest as a 1-year-old, leaving her disabled and requiring 24-hour medical care. This salient event motivated Nava to excel in school and pursue medical research so that she could one day develop treatments to help children born with congenital defects.

What challenges did you face as a first-generation student?
Money stressed me out the most. I never knew how I was going to pay my tuition each semester. While I received some federal financial aid, it didn’t cover everything. Luckily, my college stepped in and matched the federal funding. I never got a clear answer why this happened from the college financial aid office, but my logic was that since I was getting near-perfect grades, they wanted to keep me there.

I basically lived at the library while also working as a tutor for disadvantaged high school students in Huntington Beach, California, to make money to pay for food and gas. It was incredibly stressful juggling school and work, but I knew that quitting wasn’t an option. It took a lot of caffeine, and I probably suffered negative health consequences as a result. My basic human needs fell to the very bottom of my list of priorities in college because my mom, my sister, my whole family depended on me to “make it.”

What advice do you have for other first-generation students?
Succeeding in academia is less about raw intelligence and more about persistence, in my opinion. My vocabulary, my way of speaking — everything that I’ve accomplished until now — was all learned. So, even when it starts to feel impossible, know that it’s possible if you put in the work. You just have to find the right people to help you. I didn’t do it alone. At every institution I went to, there were always professors who saw my potential and counseled me through whatever hurdle I was going through.

► See Aileen Nava’s UCLA lab page

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Amander Clark

Professor and chair of molecular, cell and developmental biology, UCLA College

Image of Amander Clark

Courtesy of Amander Clark

Alma mater: University of Melbourne (bachelor’s in cell and developmental biology, doctorate in cell and developmental biology)

Hometown: Victoria, Australia

Amander Clark says she had an idyllic childhood growing up on a sheep farm in rural Australia, where she spent her time shearing sheep, wheat harvesting and helping with other chores and farm work alongside her two sisters. Her mother was a nurse and her father a farm laborer with a ninth-grade education. Both were supportive of their daughters attending college because they knew it would give them upward mobility.

What challenges did you face as a first-generation student?
I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when I first got to college. I kept expecting at every point along the way for someone to point at me and say, “What are you doing here? You don’t belong.” That imposter syndrome is something I still have today. I think it’s a first-gen thing that sticks with you for a very long time.

As a country kid who never really went to a big city, I was incredibly off-balance my entire first year of university. I felt like I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know anything about art, I didn’t know anything about music. I felt so unprepared to go and live in a city, and I found it very intimidating to be surrounded by all these very smart people who seemed to have a lot more life experience than I did. But my love for learning really helped pull me through those early years of university. I really had a thirst for knowledge and dove into my studies.

What advice do you have for other first-generation students?
There are so many people who came before you that did it and there will be people who come after you whom you can help lift up. You just have to put in the work, but as long as you’re doing your best, you’ll succeed.

► See Amander Clark’s faculty page

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Carlos Galván 

Doctoral student in the molecular biology interdepartmental program
UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center trainee

Image of Carlos Galván and family

Courtesy of Carlos Galván

Alma mater: UCLA (bachelor’s in biochemistry)

Hometown: Fontana, California

Carlos Galván credits his immigrant parents’ work ethic with shaping his drive to succeed. As co-president of the UCLA chapter of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science, or SACNAS, he’s passionate about organizing outreach events that expose young people from underrepresented communities to the magic and power of science.

What challenges did you face as a first-generation student?
Transitioning to college and having to be financially responsible for myself was really difficult. I was a full-time student and working multiple jobs. Coming from a low-income background, I had this big inner conflict of trying to balance everything. At one point, I was on the verge of academic probation because I was working so much — that was a huge wake-up call.

I wasn’t able to talk to my family or friends that I’ve known my entire life about my struggles because they wouldn’t understand what I was experiencing. I was also wrestling with thoughts like, “Am I not smart enough? Do I not belong here?” Once I started to join organizations like SACNAS and meet people that looked like me and had similar backgrounds, though — that’s when the imposter syndrome started to die down.

What advice do you have for other first-generation students?
Identify your allies, always advocate for yourself and don’t be scared to ask questions. There are resources on campus, but you have to put yourself out there and be willing to reach out for help. Join organizations like SACNAS to build community with people who have similar backgrounds and can understand your struggles. Above all, have confidence in knowing that you got into college just like your peers, so you belong.

► See Carlos Galvan’s UCLA lab page

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Pearl Quijada

Assistant professor of integrative biology and physiology, UCLA College

Image of Pearl Quijada

Courtesy of Pearl Quijada

Alma mater: UC Riverside (bachelor’s in biology), San Diego State University (master’s in cell and molecular biology), San Diego State University and UC San Diego (doctorate in cell and molecular biology)

Hometown: Los Angeles

Pearl Quijada was raised by a single mother and is the oldest of four children. A self-described “shy kid” who enjoyed solving puzzles and other activities she could do alone, she credits working in research labs with fostering her love for scientific collaboration.

What challenges did you face as a first-generation student?
The social aspect of college was hard for me. Everyone around me seemed to get it and knew exactly what they were there for. They knew that college wasn’t just about academics — it was about making friendships and joining various student clubs. I don’t know if it’s because I never had exposure to extracurricular activities growing up, but it was difficult to fit in and I felt like an outsider for most of my college experience.

What advice do you have for other first-generation students?
Make sure you’re mentally and physically healthy because burnout is real. Representation makes a huge difference, so I hope that by sharing my background, my students — particularly first-generation students — will feel more comfortable asking me for advice about how to navigate college.

► See Pearl Quijada’s faculty page

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Check out UCLA First to Go, a resource hub to assist current UCLA undergraduate students.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

 

Image of Farwiza Farhan with baby elephantCourtesy of Farwiza Farhan

Farwiza Farhan wins UCLA’s Pritzker Award for environmental innovators

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By David Colgan

Conservationist receives $100,000 for work to protect Indonesia’s species-rich Leuser Ecosystem

Image of Farwiza Farhan with baby elephant

Farhan works to protect the Leuser Ecosystem, the last place on Earth where tigers, elephants, rhinos and orangutans live together in the wild. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Farwiza Farhan

The UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability presented the 2021 Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award to Farwiza Farhan, who seeks to conserve wildlife in ways that also sustain humans living on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Farhan was honored during an online ceremony on Nov. 18.

Farhan works with communities and courts to protect the Leuser Ecosystem — the last place on Earth where tigers, elephants, rhinos and orangutans live together in the wild. She founded and leads a nonprofit organization called HAkA. The name stands for Hutan, Alam dan Lingkungan Aceh, or Forest, Nature and Environment of Aceh; its goal is to ensure sustainable development plans serve humans and wildlife in Indonesia’s Aceh province.

“My desire to protect the forest initially comes from my love of wildlife, but the force that keeps me going is the strength of the people I work with,” Farhan said.

The Pritzker award, which is presented annually, carries a prize of $100,000 that is funded through a portion of a $20 million gift to UCLA from the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation. It is the field’s first major honor specifically for innovators under the age of 40 — those whose work stands to benefit most from the prize money and the prestige it conveys.

Farhan, 35, fights ecological threats with teams who spend time living among communities around the Leuser Ecosystem to better understand their needs. Recently, she mobilized community leaders in the region to file a civil lawsuit against a development plan that could legitimize road and hydropower schemes, rights to farm oil palm trees and new settlements in the ecosystem.

She also oversees a team that patrols and intercepts would-be wildlife poachers. Since it began, the group has reduced poaching in the region by 95%.

The Pritzker Award is open to anyone working to solve environmental challenges through any lens — from science to advocacy to entrepreneurism. There were three finalists for the 2021 prize, and all are focused on regional or local challenges.

The other finalists were David Diaz, an advocate for active transportation and environmental health in California’s San Gabriel Valley, and Chook-Chook Hillman, who brings traditional Karuk tribal perspectives to bear on ecological problems in the Klamath River basin in Northern California and Oregon. A panel of UCLA faculty members selected the finalists from among 18 candidates who were nominated by an international group of environmental leaders.

Image of Farwiza Farhan in the field, holding binoculars

Farhan is the founder of HAkA, an organization dedicated to ensuring that sustainable development plans serve humans and wildlife in Indonesia’s Aceh province. Photo credit: Courtesy of Farwiza Farhan

Farhan was chosen as the 2021 honoree by a panel of five distinguished judges: Kara Hurst, head of worldwide sustainability at Amazon; Anousheh Ansari, CEO of the XPRIZE Foundation; Chanell Fletcher, executive officer of environmental justice at the California Air Resources Board; Los Angeles City Council member Kevin De Léon; and Lori Garver, CEO of the philanthropic organization Earthrise Alliance.

“Today we are in the midst of an existential crisis that human beings have never experienced before,” De Léon said in a video message to Farhan. “Your work as a researcher and forest conservationist is crucial to reversing the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss.”

The announcement of Farhan as the winner was made by Tony Pritzker, who founded the award and is a member of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability’s advisory board.

“Congratulations to David, Farwiza and Chook-Chook for having the courage to lead your communities and the next generation of environmental leaders,” Pritzker said.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

Image of an engineered HSC-iNKT cell (blue) attacking a human tumor cell. Photo Credit: Yang Lab/UCLAYang Lab/UCLA

UCLA scientists make strides toward an ‘off-the-shelf’ immune cell therapy for cancer

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By Tiare Dunlap

Using stem cell engineering and organoid technology, researchers produce large quantities of powerful cancer-fighting iNKT cells

Image of an engineered HSC-iNKT cell (blue) attacking a human tumor cell. Photo Credit: Yang Lab/UCLA

An engineered HSC-iNKT cell (blue) attacking a human tumor cell. Photo Credit: Yang Lab/UCLA

Immunotherapies, which harness the body’s natural defenses to combat disease, have revolutionized the treatment of aggressive and deadly cancers. But often, these therapies — especially those based on immune cells — must be tailored to the individual patient, costing valuable time and pushing their price into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Now, in a study published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, UCLA researchers report a critical step forward in the development of an “off-the-shelf” cancer immunotherapy using rare but powerful immune cells that could potentially be produced in large quantities, stored for extended periods and safely used to treat a wide range of patients with various cancers.

“In order to reach the most patients, we want cell therapies that can be mass-produced, frozen and shipped to hospitals around the world,” said Lili Yang, a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA and the study’s senior author. “That way, doses of these therapies can be ready and waiting for patients as soon as they are needed.”

For the study, Yang and her colleagues focused on invariant natural killer T cells, or iNKT cells, which are unique not only for their power and efficacy but also because they don’t carry the risk of graft-versus-host disease, which occurs when transplanted cells attack a recipient’s body and which is the reason most cell-based immunotherapies must be created on a patient-specific basis, Yang said.

The researchers developed a new method for producing large numbers of these iNKT cells using blood-forming stem cells, which can self-replicate and produce all kinds of blood and immune cells. The team used stem cells obtained from four donor cord-blood samples and eight donor peripheral blood samples.

“Our findings suggest that one cord blood donation could produce up to 5,000 doses of the therapy and one peripheral blood donation could produce up to 300,000 doses,” said Yang, who is also an associate professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics and a member of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. ­­“At this yield, the cost of producing immune cell products could be dramatically reduced.”

The researchers first used genetic engineering to program the blood-forming stem cells to make them more likely to develop into iNKT cells. Next, these genetically engineered stem cells were placed into artificial thymic organoids, which mimic the environment of the thymus, a specialized organ in which T cells naturally mature in the body. After eight weeks in the organoids, each stem cell produced, on average, 100,000 iNKT cells.

Yang and her collaborators then tested the resulting cells, called hematopoietic stem cell-engineered iNKT cells, or HSC–iNKT cells, by comparing their cancer-fighting abilities with those of immune cells called natural killer cells, or NK cells. In a lab dish, the HSC–iNKT cells were significantly better at killing multiple types of human tumor cells — including leukemia, melanoma, lung cancer, prostate cancer and multiple myeloma cells — than the NK cells, the researchers found.

Even more importantly, the HSC–iNKT cells sustained their tumor-killing efficacy after being frozen and thawed, an essential requirement for widespread distribution of an off-the-shelf cell therapy.

The researchers next equipped the HSC–iNKT cells with a chimeric antigen receptor, or CAR, a specialized molecule used in some immunotherapies to enable immune cells to recognize and kill a specific type of cancer. In this case, they added to the HSC–iNKT cells a CAR that targets a protein found on multiple myeloma cells and then tested the cells’ ability to fight human multiple myeloma tumors that had been transplanted into mice.

These CAR-equipped HSC–iNKT cells eliminated the multiple myeloma tumors, and the mice that underwent this treatment remained tumor-free and showed no signs of complications such as graft-versus-host disease throughout their lives.

The researchers are now working to improve their manufacturing methods by moving to a feeder-free system that eliminates the need for supportive cells — such as those used in the thymic organoids — to assist blood stem cells in producing iNKT cells. Yang says she hopes this advance will better enable mass-production of the therapy and, ultimately, its clinical and commercial development.

The paper’s co–first authors are UCLA doctoral students Yan-Ruide (Charlie) Li and Yang (Alice) Zhao. Additional authors include UCLA professors Dr. Sarah Larson, Dr. Joshua Sasine, Dr. Xiaoyan Wang, Matteo Pellegrini, Dr. Owen Witte and Dr. Antoni Ribas.

The researchers’ genetic engineering of blood-forming stem cells utilized methods developed by Dr. Donald Kohn, and the artificial thymic organoids were developed by Dr. Gay Crooks, Dr. Chris Seet and Amélie Montel-Hagen, all of the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center.

The methods and products described in this study are covered by patent applications filed by the UCLA Technology Development Group on behalf of the Regents of the University of California, with Yang, Li, Yu Jeong Kim, Jiaji Yu, Pin Wang, Yanni Zhu, Crooks, Montel-Hagen and Seet listed as co-inventors. The treatment strategy was used in preclinical tests only; it has not been tested in humans or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as safe and effective for use in humans.

Funding for the study was provided by the National Institutes of Health, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the Concern Foundation, the STOP CANCER Foundation, a UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center Rose Hills Foundation Innovator Grant and the Ablon Scholars Program.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

Journeys in Precollege Summer Institutes

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By Robin Migdol

The summer before their senior year in high school, Ryan Vuong and Alysa Kataoka each spent a week on campus participating in UCLA’s Precollege Summer Institutes, but that was only the beginning of their Bruin journeys. Both went on to attend UCLA as undergraduates.

A photo of Alysa Kataoka

Photo courtesy of Alysa Kataoka.

Precollege Summer Institutes are residential and commuter programs for high school students taught by UCLA instructors. Students can earn academic credit and take part in field trips and laboratory research. With nearly two dozen subjects as diverse as Game Lab and Mock Trial, Precollege Institutes offer students the opportunity to delve deeply into an area they’re passionate about.

Engineering a path forward

Kataoka participated in the Nanoscience Lab Summer Institute, offered by UCLA College’s California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI), in 2016. Already planning to apply to UCLA, she chose nanoscience to gain hands-on experience in engineering and applied science.

During the program Kataoka explored a variety of topics in nanoscience and gained a mentor in program coordinator Elaine Morita, who advised Kataoka on internship and other opportunities after her acceptance to UCLA.

Kataoka graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 2021 and will begin a master’s in mechanical engineering at UCLA in the fall. She said the Nanoscience Summer Institute taught her skills that she still uses today.

“The most important skill I learned was to be able to explain science or scientific concepts to people who aren’t familiar with chemistry or engineering,” she said. “I also learned to be comfortable with public speaking. People have this idea that engineers kind of keep to themselves and they don’t have to interact that much with other people, but I realized that that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

A photo of Ryan Vuong

Photo courtesy of Ryan Vuong (far left, back row) with friends at the Sci I Art Lab Summer Institute.

A head start on life skills

In 2018, Vuong participated in the Sci | Art Lab Summer Institute, which bridges science and art to encourage creative thinking and innovation. Apart from enjoying the coursework, he caught an early glimpse of life on campus.

“What I enjoyed most was the ability to interact and connect with other students my age, especially in such a close-knit setting with everyone living in the same dorm,” said Vuong, now a UCLA Regents Scholar entering his junior year as a com-puter science major. “It helped me get a sense of living on my own, doing my own laundry, keeping track of meals, and not having a parent with me at all times.”

Both Vuong and Kataoka were also recipients of UCLA Summer Sessions’ Summer Scholars Support, a need- and merit-based scholarship for California high school students.

Learn more

www.summer.ucla.edu

In Conversation with Bradley Burnam ’01

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By Bekah Wright


A photo of Bradley Burnam.
Bradley Burnam ’01, founding member of the recently formed UCLA Social Sciences Dean’s Advisory Board, says that delivering UCLA’s Department of Sociology’s 2019 commencement address was “the most amazing day of my life.” The theme: “Know Your Why.”

One might assume to know Burnam’s “why” from the story behind Turn Therapeutics, the biotechnology company he founded that specializes in advanced wound care and infection control. A severe skin and cartilage infection born of antibiotic resistant bacteria led to 19 surgeries on his scalp and ear. The technology he invented in his home-built laboratory ended up saving his own life and helping many others.

Q. What was your “why” when you headed to UCLA?

A. I really wasn’t certain what I was interested in when I started. And with UCLA being a big place, it was hard to find that in the first couple of years. While there, I became entrenched in a program through which students got to teach seminars on public speaking, study skills and speed-reading. It made me realize I really love to teach. I also was extremely interested in how to teach people with learning differences. When I left UCLA, all I wanted to do was teach.

I got my master’s in education at Stanford, and my thesis was on how to address ADHD without chemicals. After graduation, I worked with kids with learning disabilities. My life took several random turns after that, but my “why” never changed. Today, my company is my teaching platform and the subject is very personal, having been a victim of a recurring, antibiotic resistant infection.

Q. Who inspired your path?

A. My dad, who was a cardiologist, would go to the emergency room where someone was dying of a heart attack. An hour later, he’d be back home and that person would be alive. His having that kind of impact on people’s lives blew me away. Because of him, I wanted to be a healer.

Q. You’ve since worked with cardiology patients?

A. I was a medical device rep for two big pacemaker companies, a job that let me experience a little of what I dreamt about growing up. I’d be in the operating room tuning up what was controlling patients’ hearts and making sure they were beating properly. There were occasions where I’d notice the programming was wrong and could make a change that would allow that person to walk out an entirely different person

Q. What is success to you?

A. When I see photos and studies of patients whose limbs my company has saved from amputation or whose severe eczema outbreaks we have halted, that keeps me going. It’s a crazy thing to wake up and think, “My dad got to help a few people at a time. I get to help thousands at a time.”

Q. What does your future look like?

A. My immediate future is decidedly Turn’s future. I plan to grow this company as a major disruptor in the medtech and pharmaceutical space. Eventually, I want to go back and get my Ph.D. in social sciences with an emphasis in public health, then join the professor ranks while continuing to innovate in biotech.

Q. What advice would you give to others?

A. Figure out what you’re amazing at and then perfect it, rather than trying to be good at everything. Even if you have to take smaller wins over time and reduce instant gratification, don’t sacrifice the identity of your “why” over quick money. You’ll never forgive yourself.

Early on, there were people who wanted to take my technology and apply it to minimally impactful, but highly profitable indications. While it probably would have made a ton of money, I wouldn’t have received a single photo from a patient whose limb was saved thanks to this technology.

 

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A photo of Michael Carli and Christopher Zyda

The AIDS pandemic of the 1980s and ’90s forms the backdrop for written works by two Bruins, born generations apart

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As part of his senior thesis, English major Michael Carli is putting the finishing touches on “Malfunction,” a short story about two gay men living in New York City from 1984 to 1986, and English alumnus Christopher Zyda ’84 recently published his memoir “The Storm: One Voice from the AIDS Generation” (Rare Bird Books), centered on losing his partner to AIDS in 1991.

Carli will interview Zyda on January 26 as part of an online author discussion hosted by the UCLA Creative Writing Program and moderated by Assistant Professor Justin Torres.

For Carli, writing about the AIDS epidemic stemmed from wanting to examine the era from the unique perspective of his generation.

A photo of Michael Carli and Christopher Zyda

From left: Michael Carli, Christopher Zyda

“I grew up with the worst of the AIDS epidemic behind me, but in a period in which my contemporary artistic heroes, particularly when I was a teenager and in my early 20s, were the ones who were left, who had witnessed the destruction [caused by AIDS] firsthand,” Carli said. “It’s important for me to examine that history now because I feel in a way that it’s been forgotten or misunderstood by my own generation.”

Like so many writers, Carli has always been a voracious reader. It was his love of literature that lured him back to school after a stint selling shoes at a Jimmy Choo boutique in Boston. Six years ago, he moved to Los Angeles and worked as a nanny and chef for a family in Santa Monica while attending community college. In 2019, he transferred to UCLA and discovered his passion for creative writing.

Carli said, “Years ago I was afraid to admit to wanting to write novels. The creative writing program has changed things for me. Not only do I feel secure in the education itself and the technical skills I’m attempting to master here, but I feel more confident I can do it. I’d read works by [my professors] Mona Simpson and Justin Torres before I came to UCLA, and it’s really a dream to be in the same room with them. All of my professors in the Department have been incredibly instructive and supportive.”

After graduating from UCLA, Carli plans to pursue an MFA degree in creative writing and complete his first novel. Through his fiction writing, he hopes to have a positive impact on environmental issues such as climate change.

“Moving through this century, facing ecological collapse, those of us working in the humanities have a special responsibility to engage with and respond to the work that scientists are doing. We have the power to translate, as it were, that work to the public by appealing more directly to readers’ emotions,” Carli said. “I hope to do that with my writing.”

Like Carli, Chris Zyda planned to write for a living after graduating from UCLA, but he ended up setting aside his book-writing ambitions for more than 35 years.

Zyda came of age in the early years of the AIDS epidemic and, like most, had no idea of the devastation to come. Then in 1986, his partner Stephen was diagnosed with AIDS. Knowing that sky-high medical expenses were on the horizon, Zyda decided to obtain his MBA from the UCLA Anderson School and pursue a career in corporate finance. He went on to serve in high-level financial roles for industry giants like The Walt Disney Company, Amazon, and eBay before founding his own boutique investment management firm, Mozaic LLC, in 2007.

The idea for “The Storm” began with a journal entry in 2011 on the 20th anniversary of Stephen’s death, but Zyda didn’t start writing the book until 2017, a disciplined process that took only six months alongside running his business. In the book, he recounts the highs and lows of his life through the lens of family dysfunction, Stephen’s battle with AIDS, grief, the gay rights movement, the scientific quest to understand the virus, and the big cultural moments of the era.

Zyda said, “When I first started, one of my fears was that I wouldn’t remember what had happened because I had spent 26 years trying to forget it and stuffing it all away. Fortunately, I am a packrat and save receipts, ticket stubs, photos, and letters. I also made a playlist of music from that time to help me remember. Writing “The Storm” became a cathartic, healing experience.”

As for the central message of “The Storm,” Zyda said, “At some point in life, everybody has to deal with some version of what I call ‘the storm.’ Whether it’s divorce or losing a loved one or losing a job or any other personal challenge in life, remember that you can get through it. My book is a story of survival, of coming through a really challenging situation and having a wonderful, positive life afterwards.”

Author discussion with Chris Zyda: Tuesday, January 26, at 4:00 p.m. To register, please click here.

UCLA’s English department has offered creative writing courses for more than 40 years, including undergraduate concentrations in fiction and poetry writing, as well as workshops in fiction, poetry, screenwriting, and creative nonfiction. Learn more: https://english.ucla.edu/creative-writing-faqs/

This article was written by Margaret MacDonald.

A photo of Royce Hall.

Alumna’s Gift will Support the Study of Contemporary Chinese Culture

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A $250,000 donation from economics alumna May C. Chong has established the Heritage and Hope Endowment in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures. Augmented by $125,000 from the Humanities Centennial Match, the gift will support students and faculty researching contemporary global Chinese culture and/or religion, specifically Buddhism.

A photo of Royce Hall.

Royce Hall (Photo Credit: UCLA)

“We are deeply grateful for May Chong’s generous gift, which will firmly embed contemporary Chinese cultural studies on our campus,” Dean of Humanities David Schaberg said. “More broadly, this gift further empowers UCLA in its mission to educate global citizens and foster greater cultural understanding.”

Chong, who graduated from UCLA in 1979, grew up in Hong Kong and immigrated to the United States after graduating from high school. As a student, she spent hours in the Richard C. Rudolph East Asian Library in UCLA’s Young Research Library, considering it her “home away from home.” In 2011, she established an endowment for the library supporting the acquisition of books and materials, including primarily Chinese classics, culture, education and modern literature, as well as publications in Chinese or dual language (Chinese-English).

“It is my hope that these complementary gifts will help UCLA become known as a premier cultural and educational resource for both Chinese and non-Chinese-speaking people who are interested in Chinese language, teachings and cultures,” Chong said.

Chong is a longtime financial adviser currently employed by UBS Financial Services. She previously worked for Merrill Lynch. In 2014, she was named by the Financial Times among the Top 100 Women Financial Advisors. In the same year CEOWorld placed her on their America’s Top-Ranked 100 Women Financial Advisors list. She is married to Danny Yiu. They have a daughter who graduated from NYU in 2017.

Photo of Leia Yen.

UCLA transfer student wins a Marshall Scholarship

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Photo of Leia Yen.

While at UCLA, Leia Yen founded Bruins for Urban Debate, an organization that mentors young debate students. Credit: El Camino College

Leia Yen, who graduated from UCLA in 2019, has won the prestigious Marshall Scholarship, making her the first Bruin to win in nine years, and also the first UCLA transfer student to receive the award.

The Marshall Scholarship — which finances one to two years of graduate study at any U.K. university — is awarded to approximately 45 American college graduates each year.

As a Marshall Scholar, Yen will pursue master’s degrees in digital humanities and digital culture and society at King’s College London.

“I see my studies at King’s College as a chance to develop an international, collaborative approach to digital humanities, not only between the U.S. and the U.K., but also with other institutions, nations and communities that have been underrepresented in traditional tech-related fields,” Yen said.

At UCLA, Yen focused on digital humanities, presenting two projects at Undergraduate Research Week and working as a research assistant for Ramesh Srinivasan, professor in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Her research focuses on inequalities in technology and digital culture.

A native of Torrance, Yen transferred to UCLA from El Camino College, where she was an active member of the college’s speech and debate team. Even after transferring to UCLA, she continued coaching the El Camino debate team, because the experience was so transformative. Yen proudly noted that all of the students she mentored on the team last year had successfully transferred to UCLA.

She also coached high school debate teams in the Los Angeles Unified School District through the Los Angeles Metropolitan Debate League. At UCLA, she founded Bruins for Urban Debate, a student organization that mentors young debate students.

“I care about making education accessible and inclusive, and I see debate as a way of empowering students with the portable skills that will make them effective students, advocates and leaders, even after their debate careers come to an end,” she said.

Yen was drawn to UCLA after her experience at Bruin Day for transfer students, when she met faculty, staff and students who showed her how much UCLA values transfer students and the perspectives they bring to the campus. These supportive mentors inspired Yen to become a mentor at the UCLA Transfer Student Center.

“It’s important to me to support transfer students, because it really does make a difference when you have an advocate, friend, mentor or leader who knows how to speak and work from their own experiences,” Yen said. “I loved being a community college student, and I loved being surrounded by people who shared my love for the transfer community.”

When the British consulate called Yen to tell her that she had won the Marshall Scholarship, she was driving to a tournament for her El Camino debate team. She told the students the good news when she arrived.

“Throughout the tournament, I heard those students talking about the Marshall, Fulbright and Rhodes scholarships. And to my delight, they were thinking openly about what it would be like to pursue the scholarships themselves,” Yen said. “This is what representation does. Hearing my students dream big made me feel like I had won the Marshall all over again.”

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.