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Archive for category: Box 2

You are here: Home / Featured Stories / Box 2
Images of, from left to right, UCLA College transfer students Carina Salazar, Chris Adams, Daniella Efrat and Darnel Grant.

Stories of success: transfer students celebrate their UCLA graduation

June 3, 2022/in Box 2, College News, Featured Stories, Our Stories Page, Students /by Lucy Berbeo
Images of, from left to right, UCLA College transfer students Carina Salazar, Chris Adams, Daniella Efrat and Darnel Grant.

Left to right: Carina Salazar, Chris Adams, Daniella Efrat and Darnel Grant.


By Jonathan Riggs | June 3, 2022

“What I tell everyone I work with,” says Carina Salazar, director of UCLA’s Transfer Student Center, “is that you don’t succeed at UCLA despite being a transfer student. You succeed at UCLA because you’re a transfer student.”

Nearly a quarter of UCLA’s undergraduates are transfer students; what they bring to campus in terms of their richly diverse life experience cannot be overstated. They arrive at UCLA having made intentional choices and even sacrifices that reflect just what it means to them to become Bruins—one current transfer student living in the residence halls, for example, decided it was her turn to get an education after her children graduated from college.

Image of Carina Salazar

Carina Salazar,  Transfer Student Center director

Established in 2009, the UCLA Transfer Student Center is the go-to resource for current and future transfer students with a stated mission “to provide a welcoming environment and create a community that is inclusive of all lived experiences.”

A transfer student herself, Salazar was born in rural Mexico and was the first in her family to graduate from college, so she knows what the experience can mean, especially during commencement season.

“It’s such a powerful, emotional experience to see transfer students graduating from UCLA, because the transformation they have experienced here will change the course of their life forever,” she says. “When we meet the needs of our transfer students and help them succeed, the experience for all students is better for it.”

“Transfer students are vibrant, essential voices in our shared Bruin community,” says Adriana Galván, dean of undergraduate education. “Together, we are UCLA and our united potential is limitless.”

Here are a few snapshots of success among our newest Bruin alumni who transferred to UCLA.

 

Image of Chris Adams

Chris Adams

Staying Inspired

For a long time, attending college seemed like an impossibility to Chris Adams. He’d dropped out of high school, had a son and was focused on football coaching. But his growing interest in politics and civil rights activism inspired him to get his GED and then complete community college with highest honors.

Transferring via a UCLA College Reentry Scholarship, Adams held a job on campus and fell in love with his coursework. He joined the national civil rights organization People’s Alliance for Justice and traveled to Minneapolis with the group after the murder of George Floyd to offer assistance to community members in need. He graduated last quarter with a B.A. in sociology—again with highest honors—and is now preparing to take the LSAT.

“If it wasn’t for the support I received at UCLA and the encouragement of my mentors, I wouldn’t have believed I could ever start down the path of becoming an attorney,” says Adams. “Sometimes I can’t believe that everything I dreamed of and worked for actually came to fruition.”

Today he finds himself in a unique position, helping inspire two important people in his life to find their way to higher education as well: his high-school-aged son and his mother.

“My son is getting a different type of high school education than I did, and I couldn’t be prouder. As he looks ahead to his own college journey, we talk about the things I learned in sociology and how we can both work to change some of the structures in place,” Adams says. “And I couldn’t be prouder that my mom went back to school and is battling it out now. We definitely laugh about the universal college student desire to procrastinate on writing papers, but she’s the smartest person I know.”

As he looks ahead to his next steps and reaffirms his commitment to public service, Adams says that becoming a Bruin has given him the ability to picture a fuller future for himself, of service and purpose.

“The entire UCLA community, from my classmates to the Scholarship Resource Center to the faculty and alumni have inspired me to want to become a leader,” he says. “I wouldn’t be where I am without my mentors, and I’m eager to do what I can to make it easier for those who come after me.”

 

Image of Darnel Grant

Darnel Grant

Working Hard

Like so many other talented young people, Darnel Grant originally moved to Los Angeles to get into the entertainment industry, armed with more enthusiasm than material resources. Struggling to support himself in an expensive city, Grant faced housing insecurity for a time—an experience that later informed his studies at UCLA after he transferred in from community college.

“I started my undergraduate experience at UCLA thinking I wanted a career in politics, but my focus has changed to housing, finance and urban planning,” says Grant, who worked with faculty on research exploring how to improve housing issues in Los Angeles and across the U.S. Next fall, he will start a master’s program in urban and regional planning at the Luskin School of Public Affairs.

No one will be celebrating his graduation more exuberantly, however, than his big sister, who has always encouraged him to realize his full potential. And joining in the celebration will be his allies in UCLA’s Scholarship Resource Center.

“SRC Director Angela Deaver Campbell reminded me of family: she always had my best interests at heart and helped me believe in myself,” he says. “There were times I’d come to her, overwhelmed, and she’d have me feeling like I was the heavyweight champion of the world.”

Thanks in part to the SRC’s support and encouragement to apply for the aid he so desperately needed, Grant earned the Eugene and Maxine Rosenfeld Scholarship, which allowed him to start saving money for the first time in his life and focus completely on his studies.

“I really hope I can help the SRC in some capacity one day. All in all, I’m so impressed with how much UCLA has molded me,” he says. “I feel prepared for what’s next and so, so happy I got through. There were some really intense moments, but this experience proved to me what I can do.”

That said, Grant is definitely not someone to rest on his laurels—he’s planning to work the entire summer and then pursue an internship to gain experience in the housing finance field.

“I definitely have a lot to prove still,” he says. “When I get to a certain point I can prioritize rest, but until then, I’m focused on work.”

 

Image of Daniella Efrat

Daniella Efrat

Realizing a Dream

Daniella Efrat’s family knew how much she had always wanted to attend UCLA. In fact, after she successfully applied to transfer in from Los Angeles Valley College, they may have celebrated even more than she did.

“My grandparents printed out a picture of my acceptance letter to UCLA, framed it and hung it on the wall,” she says. “Seeing how happy they were for me meant everything.”

A political science major with minors in public affairs and labor studies, Efrat came to UCLA after completing an internship at the California Labor Commissioner’s office. Moved to action by the stories of people she helped there, she began an independent research project at UCLA conducting an archival study of immigration-related, retaliation wage claims in California since 2013—the first of its type.

“I’m really passionate about research and public service, and my professional goal is to help immigrant workers by bolstering their legal protections as well as their awareness of these protections,” she says. “I’m going to do my Ph.D. at Stanford in sociology and then start Yale Law School right after—I would love to become a law professor to focus on these issues.”

As excited as she was to transfer to UCLA, Efrat struggled to find her confidence when she first made the switch. But by reaching out to professors whose work she admired, she began to develop a network of mentors who helped her find the right path for her unique journey.

“The best thing you can do—especially at a big school like UCLA—is to contact people and broaden your circle,” she says. “It can be life-changing to find mentors who can guide you, and that relationship can begin with a single conversation or email where you ask a question. I still talk to Rebecca Blustein in the Scholarship Resource Center about my career plans, and she still goes out of her way to help me—you’d be surprised at how generous people can be with their time.”

As her time as a UCLA undergraduate comes to an end, Efrat is able to look back with pride on all that she accomplished in the time she was here—especially during such a unique time.

“I’m proudest that I was able to engage in everything that UCLA has to offer, even during COVID,” Efrat says. “I always dreamed of coming here and I know I made the most of my Bruin experience.”

For more of Our Stories at the College, click here.

https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/transfers-363.png 237 363 Lucy Berbeo https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Lucy Berbeo2022-06-03 12:24:262022-06-10 15:55:44Stories of success: transfer students celebrate their UCLA graduation
Image of Gymnast Katelyn Ohashi on the balance beam.Image credit: Emily Howell-Forbes

Gymnast, activist Katelyn Ohashi to deliver UCLA College commencement address

April 13, 2022/in Alumni & Friends, Box 2, College News, Featured Stories, Our Stories Page /by Lucy Berbeo
The UCLA alumna will speak at all three ceremonies June 10 in Pauley Pavilion
Image of gymnast Katelyn Ohashi on the balance beam.

Gymnast Katelyn Ohashi on the balance beam. | Image credit: Emily Howell-Forbes


By Jonathan Riggs | April 13, 2022

Award-winning gymnast, activist and UCLA alumna Katelyn Ohashi will deliver the keynote address at all three UCLA College commencement ceremonies on Friday, June 10. Three separate ceremonies will be held, at 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., in Pauley Pavilion. The program will also include remarks by UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and student speakers from the graduating class.

“Katelyn Ohashi epitomizes Bruin values with her strength of character, compassion and leadership in the face of challenges,” said David Schaberg, senior dean of the UCLA College. “She will inspire our graduating seniors and UCLA community to approach the next chapter of their lives with open hearts and limitless courage.”

Image of Katelyn Ohashi

Katelyn Ohashi. | Image credit: Wasserman

From childhood, Ohashi was an avid gymnast, making her debut at the 2009 junior olympic national championships at age 12. She went on to become the 2011 junior national champion and defeated Simone Biles to win the 2013 American Cup. Despite suffering a back injury the next year and being told by doctors she might not be able to compete again, Ohashi persisted — earning a full gymnastics scholarship to UCLA.

“I am so proud to address my fellow Bruins and help celebrate this wonderful accomplishment in their lives,” said Ohashi, who graduated in 2019 with a degree in gender studies. “I hope to inspire them to embrace challenges, love themselves and find their voices.”

An eight-time All-American and four-time member of USA Gymnastics’ junior national team, Ohashi became one of the most decorated gymnasts in UCLA history. During her Bruin career, she earned 11 perfect 10s — including for a 2019 floor routine that became an internet sensation. She was named Pac-12 specialist of the year in 2018 and 2019, and was 2018 NCAA and Pac-12 co-champion in the floor exercise as well as 2019 Pac-12 co-champion in the floor exercise and balance beam. During her senior year, Ohashi took first place for each of her first seven routines.

In addition to her studies and gymnastics achievements while at UCLA, Ohashi led fundraisers to help individuals struggling with homelessness. She also volunteered for Project Heal, a nonprofit focused on helping people recover from eating disorders. As a motivational speaker and activist, she continues to advocate for body positivity. When Ohashi was honored at the 2019 ESPY Awards, she delivered a spoken-word poem denouncing body shaming, sexual assault and cyberbullying.

Ohashi was chosen to be the class of 2022 commencement speaker by a committee of students, faculty and administrators.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more of Our Stories at the College, click here.

https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/katelynohashibeam-363.jpeg 237 363 Lucy Berbeo https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Lucy Berbeo2022-04-13 14:58:302022-04-21 16:40:33Gymnast, activist Katelyn Ohashi to deliver UCLA College commencement address
Image of parched land in NevadaFamartin/Wikimedia Commons

Megadrought in southwestern North America is region’s driest in at least 1,200 years

February 14, 2022/in Box 2, College News, Faculty & Research /by Lucy Berbeo
Image of parched land in Nevada

Parched land in Nevada. A UCLA-led research team studied centuries of megadroughts in the region spanning southern Montana to northern Mexico and the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains. Photo credit: Famartin/Wikimedia Commons

Climate change is a significant factor, UCLA-led research finds

By Anna Novoselov

The drought that has enveloped southwestern North America for the past 22 years is the region’s driest “megadrought” — defined as a drought lasting two decades or longer — since at least the year 800, according to a new UCLA-led study in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Thanks to the region’s high temperatures and low precipitation levels from summer 2020 through summer 2021, the current drought has exceeded the severity of a late-1500s megadrought that previously had been identified as the driest such drought in the 1,200 years that the scientists studied.

UCLA geographer Park Williams, the study’s lead author, said with dry conditions likely to persist, it would take multiple wet years to remediate their effects.

“It’s extremely unlikely that this drought can be ended in one wet year,” he said.

The researchers calculated the intensity of droughts by analyzing tree ring patterns, which provide insights about soil moisture levels each year over long timespans. (They also confirmed their measurements by checking findings against historical climate data.) Periods of severe drought were marked by high degrees of “soil moisture deficit,” a metric that describes how little moisture the soil contains compared to its normal saturation.

Since 2000, the average soil moisture deficit was twice as severe as any drought of the 1900s — and greater than it was during even the driest parts of the most severe megadroughts of the past 12 centuries.

Studying the area from southern Montana to northern Mexico, and from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains, researchers discovered that megadroughts occurred repeatedly in the region from 800 to 1600. Williams said the finding suggests that dramatic shifts in dryness and water availability happened in the Southwest prior to the effects of human-caused climate change becoming apparent in the 20th century.

Existing climate models have shown that the current drought would have been dry even without climate change, but not to the same extent. Human-caused climate change is responsible for about 42% of the soil moisture deficit since 2000, the paper found.

One of the primary reasons climate change is causing more severe droughts is that warmer temperatures are increasing evaporation, which dries out soil and vegetation. From 2000 to 2021, temperatures in the region were 0.91 degrees Celsius (about 1.64 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the average from 1950 to 1999.

“Without climate change, the past 22 years would have probably still been the driest period in 300 years,” Williams said. “But it wouldn’t be holding a candle to the megadroughts of the 1500s, 1200s or 1100s.”

As of Feb. 10, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 95% of the Western U.S. was experiencing drought conditions. And in summer 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, two of the largest reservoirs in North America — Lake Mead and Lake Powell, both on the Colorado River — reached their lowest recorded levels.

Regulators have continued to implement water conservation measures in response to water shortages caused by the drought. In August, for example, federal officials cut water allocations to several southwestern states in response to low water levels in the Colorado River. And in October, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency and asked Californians to voluntarily decrease their water usage by 15%.

Williams said initiatives like those will help in the short term, but water conservation efforts that extend beyond times of drought will be needed to help ensure people have the water they need as climate change continues to intensify drought conditions.

The study was a collaboration among researchers from UCLA, NASA and the Columbia Climate School.

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

https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/CrackedlandinNevadaFamartinWikimediaCommons-363x237.png 237 363 Lucy Berbeo https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Lucy Berbeo2022-02-14 14:58:332022-03-14 14:09:13Megadrought in southwestern North America is region’s driest in at least 1,200 years
Image of smartwatch developed at UCLA that assesses cortisol levels found in sweatYichao Zhao and Zhaoqing Wang/UCLA

Sweating the small stuff: Smartwatch developed at UCLA measures key stress hormone

February 10, 2022/in Box 2, College News, Faculty & Research, Featured Stories /by Lucy Berbeo
Image of smartwatch developed at UCLA that assesses cortisol levels found in sweat

Cortisol is well-suited for measurement through wearable devices, according to study co-author Sam Emaminejad, because its concentration levels in sweat are similar to its circulating levels. Photo credit: Yichao Zhao and Zhaoqing Wang/UCLA

Editor’s note: This breakthrough by UCLA College researchers was featured on BBC Click, the BBC’s flagship tech show. Click here to watch the clip at the BBC website.

By Wayne Lewis

The human body responds to stress, from the everyday to the extreme, by producing a hormone called cortisol.

To date, it has been impractical to measure cortisol as a way to potentially identify conditions such as depression and post-traumatic stress, in which levels of the hormone are elevated. Cortisol levels traditionally have been evaluated through blood samples by professional labs, and while those measurements can be useful for diagnosing certain diseases, they fail to capture changes in cortisol levels over time.

Now, a UCLA research team has developed a device that could be a major step forward: a smartwatch that assesses cortisol levels found in sweat — accurately, noninvasively and in real time. Described in a study published in Science Advances, the technology could offer wearers the ability to read and react to an essential biochemical indicator of stress.

“I anticipate that the ability to monitor variations in cortisol closely across time will be very instructive for people with psychiatric disorders,” said co-corresponding author Anne Andrews, a UCLA professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA and member of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. “They may be able to see something coming or monitor changes in their own personal patterns.”

Cortisol is well-suited for measurement through sweat, according to co-corresponding author Sam Emaminejad, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, and a member of CNSI.

“We determined that by tracking cortisol in sweat, we would be able to monitor such changes in a wearable format, as we have shown before for other small molecules such as metabolites and pharmaceuticals,” he said. “Because of its small molecular size, cortisol diffuses in sweat with concentration levels that closely reflect its circulating levels.”

► Related: UCLA-led team develops new system for tracking chemicals in the brain

The technology capitalizes on previous advances in wearable bioelectronics and biosensing transistors made by Emaminejad, Andrews and their research teams.

Illustration of the components of the smartwatch and how it sits atop the skin.

The technology capitalizes on previous work by Sam Emaminejad, Anne Andrews and their UCLA research teams. Image credit: Emaminejad Lab and Andrews Lab/UCLA

In the new smartwatch, a strip of specialized thin adhesive film collects tiny volumes of sweat, measurable in millionths of a liter. An attached sensor detects cortisol using engineered strands of DNA, called aptamers, which are designed so that a cortisol molecule will fit into each aptamer like a key fits a lock. When cortisol attaches, the aptamer changes shape in a way that alters electric fields at the surface of a transistor.

The invention — along with a 2021 study that demonstrated the ability to measure key chemicals in the brain using probes — is the culmination of a long scientific quest for Andrews. Over more than 20 years, she has spearheaded efforts to monitor molecules such as serotonin, a chemical messenger in the brain tied to mood regulation, in living things, despite transistors’ vulnerability to wet, salty biological environments.

In 1999, she proposed using nucleic acids — rather than proteins, the standard mechanism — to recognize specific molecules.

“That strategy led us to crack a fundamental physics problem: how to make transistors work for electronic measurements in biological fluids,” said Andrews, who is also a professor of chemistry and biochemistry.

Meanwhile, Emaminejad has had a vision of ubiquitous personal health monitoring. His lab is pioneering wearable devices with biosensors that track the levels of certain molecules that are related to specific health measures.

“We’re entering the era of point-of-person monitoring, where instead of going to a doctor to get checked out, the doctor is basically always with us,” he said. “The data are collected, analyzed and provided right on the body, giving us real-time feedback to improve our health and well-being.”

Emaminejad’s lab had previously demonstrated that a disposable version of the specialized adhesive film enables smartwatches to analyze chemicals from sweat, as well as a technology that prompts small amounts of sweat even when the wearer is still. Earlier studies showed that sensors developed by Emaminejad’s group could be useful for diagnosing diseases such as cystic fibrosis and for personalizing drug dosages.

► Related: Adhesive film turns smartwatch into biochemical health monitoring system

One challenge in using cortisol levels to diagnose depression and other disorders is that levels of the hormone can vary widely from person to person — so doctors can’t learn very much from any single measurement. But the authors foresee that tracking individual cortisol levels over time using the smartwatch may alert wearers, and their physicians, to changes that could be clinically significant for diagnosis or monitoring the effects of treatment.

Among the study’s other authors is Janet Tomiyama, a UCLA associate professor of psychology, who has collaborated with Emaminejad’s lab over the years to test his wearable devices in clinical settings.

“This work turned into an important paper by drawing together disparate parts of UCLA,” said Paul Weiss, a UCLA distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry and of materials science and engineering, a member of CNSI, and a co-author of the paper. “It comes from us being close in proximity, not having ego problems and being excited about working together. We can solve each other’s problems and take this technology in new directions.”

The latest research builds upon early work that was funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The current study received funding from the NSF CAREER program, the National Institute on Drug Abuse through an NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award, the National Institute of General Medical Science of the NIH, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, the Stanford Genome Technology Center, the Brain and Behavior Foundation and the PhRMA Foundation.

The UCLA NanoLab, Electron Imaging Center for NanoMachines and Nano and Pico Characterization Laboratory, all housed at CNSI, provided instrumentation for the new study.

The paper’s co-first authors are UCLA postdoctoral scholar Bo Wang and Chuanzhen Zhao, a former UCLA graduate student. Other co-authors are Zhaoqing Wang, Xuanbing Cheng, Wenfei Liu, Wenzhuo Yu, Shuyu Lin, Yichao Zhao, Kevin Cheung and Haisong Lin, all of UCLA; and Milan Stojanović and Kyung-Ae Yang of Columbia University.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu.
https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Cortisolsensingsmartwatch-363x237.png 237 363 Lucy Berbeo https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Lucy Berbeo2022-02-10 09:11:102022-03-02 10:44:34Sweating the small stuff: Smartwatch developed at UCLA measures key stress hormone
Graphic depicting an image of Martin Luther King Jr. as well as Rev. James Lawson and UCLA studentsGraphic by Tina Ly/UCLA. Photos by UCLA and UCLA Labor Center

UCLA nonviolence class connects students to Martin Luther King Jr.’s enduring legacy

January 14, 2022/in Box 2, College News, Faculty & Research, Featured Stories /by Lucy Berbeo
The class taught by Rev. James Lawson Jr. has motivated students to carry on the fight for justice
Graphic depicting an image of Martin Luther King Jr. as well as Rev. James Lawson and UCLA students
By Citlalli Chávez-Nava

Though it’s been more than 50 years since he was killed, the teachings of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. live on at UCLA, as they’re passed along from one of King’s contemporaries to today’s undergraduates.

For the past two decades, Rev. James Lawson Jr. — one of King’s close friends and fellow civil and labor rights leader, who King once referred to as “the leading strategist of nonviolence in the world” — has taught a UCLA course on King’s signature method for social reform.

Lawson, who received campus’s highest honor, the UCLA Medal, in recognition of his life’s work, co-teaches the class with Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center. “Labor Studies M173: Nonviolence and Social Movements” is part of the labor studies academic program and offered jointly with the African American studies department and the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano and Central American Studies.

During the civil rights movement, King and Lawson embraced the philosophy of nonviolence as the most effective force to advance social, racial and economic equity in U.S. society. Together, they taught nonviolent resistance tactics to young activists, catalyzing lunch counter sit-ins, the 1961 Freedom Rides, and worker and student demonstrations that helped desegregate the South and inspired far-reaching voter mobilization efforts. In 1968, Lawson invited King to support the renowned Memphis Sanitation Strike where King was assassinated.

The class has motivated students to embrace King’s enduring legacy, while carrying on the fight for justice on campus and in the community.

“UCLA students have been inspired by Dr. King and Rev. Lawson’s teachings,” Wong said. “Many undocumented students of UCLA, in particular, have embraced the philosophy of nonviolence to win historic victories for immigrant rights, including DACA, the California Dream Act and health care access for undocumented young people.”

Students in the course examine nonviolent theory and its impact on social movements in the United States and around the globe while applying these concepts to present-day social challenges through service learning activities.

“We share a common commitment to getting the nonviolent history and theory into the public coffers where social change, personal change and the change towards equality can be made directly,” said Lawson said during a lecture last year.

Leticia Bustamante, who graduated from UCLA in 2017, said taking the class strongly influenced her academic journey and her activism. Among her most memorable class lectures was learning about King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” in which King wrote a powerful defense of a 1963 massive direct action campaign to pressure Birmingham merchants to desegregate the city during a busy shopping season. The letter is regarded as one of the most influential texts of the civil rights movement.

“For me, this letter serves as a blueprint and reference on the essentials of nonviolent action. Whether I am organizing for labor or immigration, I always keep the four [nonviolence] principles in the back of my mind,” Bustamante said. “I remind myself that the tensions we are creating are necessary. People should be made to feel uncomfortable, because progress and growth are never easy.”

Bustamante is now a master’s candidate in public policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and has returned to the class as a guest speaker to share her immigrant rights organizing experiences.

Last spring, when the course was moved to an online platform because of COVID-19 restrictions, Lawson and Wong identified an opportunity to share the class with a wider audience. The weekly lectures and conversations were made available in real-time and were also archived on the Labor Center’s YouTube channel.

“Rev. Lawson has deep relationships with union activists, the faith community and social justice leaders throughout the country. We thought this would be an excellent opportunity to spread his teachings on nonviolence far and wide,” Wong said.

Among other distinguished guests, the class featured labor and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta, Black Lives Matter Los Angeles co-founder Melina Abdullah, California State Senator Maria Elena Durazo and anti-apartheid leader Rev. Allan Boesak who addressed the class from his home in South Africa. Lectures offered viewers perspectives on the Delano grape strikes, the Nashville sit-ins and nonviolence movements in other countries. Students and viewers also had the opportunities to discuss Los Angeles-based movements in support of hotel worker rights and Black Lives Matter.

“Our labor studies program is proud to offer a curriculum that connects students to King’s legacy and the teachings of Rev. Lawson,” said Tobias Higbie, professor of history and labor studies faculty chair. “Lawson not only inspires our students by his long career, he also challenges each of us to live up to our potential as agents of positive social change.”

This coming spring 2022, the class will explore similar themes and students will also learn about Lawson’s teachings in a new book, “Revolutionary Nonviolence: Organizing for Freedom,” to be published by UC Press next month. Lawson and Wong hope to teach the course in-person but are prepared to offer the course virtually once again if public health restrictions persist.

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

https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/MLKgraphic2022.png 768 1152 Lucy Berbeo https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Lucy Berbeo2022-01-14 12:50:002022-01-20 12:10:42UCLA nonviolence class connects students to Martin Luther King Jr.’s enduring legacy
Image of the The Rev. James Lawson Jr. at building dedicationPhoto Credit: Reed Hutchinson/UCLA

UCLA dedicates labor center building to Rev. James Lawson Jr., champion of civil and worker rights

January 7, 2022/in Box 2, College News, Featured Stories /by Lucy Berbeo

The building, which is now named in his honor, will house labor research, teaching and service for decades to come

Image of the The Rev. James Lawson Jr. at building dedication

Addressing the crowd at the ceremony, Lawson said, “Economic justice for every boy and girl of our 331 million people in the United States is perhaps the most daunting, complex issue we face.” Photo Credit: Reed Hutchinson/UCLA

By Citlalli Chávez-Nava

For a building dedicated to ensuring fair treatment and opportunities for workers and that is located in the heart of one of Los Angeles’ working-class immigrant neighborhoods, naming it after iconic civil and workers’ rights leader Rev. James Lawson Jr. was perfect.

On Dec. 11, the UCLA Labor Center’s historic MacArthur Park building was officially named the UCLA James Lawson Jr. Worker Justice Center in honor Lawson, one of the civil rights movement’s most-prominent leaders of non-violent protest and a UCLA labor studies faculty member.

“Throughout history, many of our greatest leaders have urged us to look inward,” UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said to the audience of 300 attendees at a ceremony hosted by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor in partnership with the Labor Center. “They ask: Who are we as people? What do we value? What kind of society do we want, and what are we willing to do to build it?

“For over 60 years, James Lawson has invited Americans to consider such pressing questions. He has insisted that humanity’s salvation lies in reason and compassion, not violence or exploitation. His vision and valor have mobilized Americans, changed this nation, and inspired activists around the globe.”

Once referred to as “the mind of the movement” and “the leading strategist of nonviolence in the world” by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Lawson, now 93, is known internationally for teaching nonviolent resistance tactics to young activists. In the course of his life, Lawson and his colleagues and students led lunch counter sit-ins, freedom rides and worker strikes including the historic 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike during the civil rights movement.

Lawson said he was humbled by UCLA naming a building in his honor.

“I had no idea how to prepare for this moment. For this extraordinary experience of all of you and the coalition that came together, to make this possible,” Lawson said. “On behalf of my wife, Dorothy, and her parents, and my parents and our great grandparents, and all on behalf of our sons, our grandchildren … we thank you very much, absolutely astonishing — I could never have imagined anything like this at all.”

Image of Chancellor Gene Block speaking at the ceremony naming the building that houses the UCLA Labor Center in honor of the Rev. James Lawson Jr.

Chancellor Gene Block speaks at the ceremony naming the building that houses the UCLA Labor Center in honor of the Rev. James Lawson Jr.
Photo credit: Reed Hutchinson/UCLA

Local Emmy-nominated R&B and gospel artist Ashly Williams sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing” to kick off the ceremony, which took place in front of the building, just a couple of miles away from the downtown Los Angeles skyline.

“I am proud to say that the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor signed on immediately in support of the $15 million allocation to establish a home for the UCLA Labor Center and to rename this building in your honor,” said Los Angeles County Labor Federation President Ron Herrera. “This investment, this building, will help energize the future of the Los Angeles labor movement.”

Guests included members of Lawson’s family, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles County supervisors Hilda Solis and Holly Mitchell, state senators María Elena Durazo and Steven Bradford, State Controller Betty Yee, California State Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, assemblymembers Reggie Jones-Sawyer and Miguel Santiago, and Los Angeles City Councilmember Gil Cedillo, were among other community leaders, who spoke of Lawson’s unwavering commitment to advancing racial justice and worker rights.

“On behalf of this City of Angels, thank you to this angel,” Garcetti said. “Whether it’s in a sermon at Holman [United Methodist Church] or whether it’s in a private small conversation that I’ve had with [Rev. Lawson] at UCLA — and thank you to UCLA, Chancellor Block for having this center here — this man has shown us what it means to live in a city of angels in a world fighting for justice and in a city of belonging.”

UCLA faculty and administrators including Block, Dean of Social Sciences Darnell Hunt, Labor Center Director Kent Wong, labor studies students, clergy, members of Holman United Methodist Church and union members also attended.

A third generation Methodist minister, Lawson was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and earned his local pastor’s license in 1949 during his senior year of high school. Shortly after graduating, he was drafted into the U.S. military but refused to enlist. As a conscientious objector, Lawson received a three-year sentence, and served 13 months in prison.

Following release from prison, Lawson traveled to India as a missionary where he studied the nonviolence teachings of Mohandas Gandhi. Upon returning to the United States in 1956, Lawson began to train and inspire a new generation of civil rights leaders including the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis, also a recipient of the UCLA Medal, campus’s highest honor. Lawson received the UCLA Medal in 2018.

Image of California State Sen. María Elena Durazo was a student of the Rev. James Lawson Jr.

California State Sen. María Elena Durazo was a student of the Rev. James Lawson Jr. Photo credit: Reed Hutchinson/UCLA

In 1974, Lawson moved to Los Angeles and became pastor of Holman United Methodist Church where he led his congregation to mobilize for peace and social justice while contributing to the transformation of the Los Angeles labor movement. His work with the UNITE HERE Local 11 helped hotel workers achieve higher wages and improved working conditions by orchestrating nonviolent sit-ins, hunger strikes and civil disobedience protests. Soon after, Los Angeles labor organizers embraced similar tactics, which inspired a national movement for immigrant worker justice.

Durazo strategized with Lawson directly as a young leader at UNITE HERE Local 11 and has maintained her friendship with Lawson for more than 30 years. Inspired by his teachings, she led the effort to name the Labor Center building in his honor and unveiled the building’s signage bearing Lawson’s name to a standing ovation.

“Reverend Lawson’s lifelong advocacy, for social justice, for civil rights, for workers’ rights, for breaking down racist institutions will be honored through all the great organizing that I know is going to be done at this center over decades to come,” she said.

Wong, who has led the work of the UCLA Labor Center for the past 30 years and has co-taught alongside Lawson for the past 20 years, welcomed Lawson to the podium.

“Reverend Lawson has been our moral and our spiritual compass,” Wong said. “I’ve watched the transformation each year, as our students sit in awe and learn from Reverend Lawson, learn about his life, his teachings … how he has lived his life with principles and justice, and determination.”

In his address, Lawson recognized the unprecedented challenges facing the nation and how this moment would serve as a reminder of the urgent need to achieve economic dignity for all.

“Economic justice for every boy and girl of our 331 million people in the United States is perhaps the most daunting, complex issue we face,” he said. “But if we do not achieve it, if we cannot achieve it, we as the people, will have failed this extraordinary vision and mission that I personally have loved.”

Yet, he expressed hope in our human capacity to overcome our present challenges.

“If we can tap the great forces of life itself, and use those powers in the solving of the issues we face, we will discover the power of life itself in the power of the universe.”

Naming the building in honor of Lawson forms part of a $15 million effort to renovate the Labor Center funded by a one-time allocation in California’s 2021-22 state budget. The Labor Center was originally established in 1964 within the UCLA Institute of Industrial Relations, now the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, through a statewide joint labor-university committee. Since its inception, the center has been dedicated to research, education and service in the interest of California workers.

In 2002, the Labor Center leased the building overlooking MacArthur Park to connect UCLA students and faculty to the broader Los Angeles worker community. Since then, it has focused on cutting-edge worker research, investigating topics such as wage theft, Black unemployment, immigrant workers, young workers and the gig economy. The center is also recognized for its innovative worker education and popular education programs and community-engaged learning within the economic justice movement and promoting a global workers’ rights agenda.

“We’re thrilled to help build a community asset that bears Reverend Lawson’s name. It will be a profound reminder of our obligation to advance research and policy solutions that advance worker and economic justice,” said Abel Valenzuela Jr., director of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. “The UCLA James Lawson Jr. Worker Justice Center will place Los Angeles and [the University of California] at the forefront of community engagement, academic research and a push for a worker centered economy.”

In honor of Lawson’s life and enduring legacy, early next year, UC Press will also release a book titled, “Revolutionary Nonviolence: Organizing for Freedom” featuring Lawson’s teachings on nonviolence.

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

https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/LawsonDedication19_QP.jpg 2400 3600 Lucy Berbeo https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Lucy Berbeo2022-01-07 15:19:282022-01-08 15:08:17UCLA dedicates labor center building to Rev. James Lawson Jr., champion of civil and worker rights
Image of Rev. James Lawson speaking to interns in the Dream Summer program, a fellowship opportunity for student immigrants and their allies.UCLA Labor Center

A perfect tribute: UCLA names labor center building in honor of Rev. James Lawson Jr.

December 13, 2021/in Box 2, College News, Faculty & Research, Featured Stories /by Lucy Berbeo

By Madeline Adamo

Civil and labor rights icon and 20-year labor studies faculty member to be linked with UCLA in perpetuity
Image of Rev. James Lawson speaking to interns in the Dream Summer program, a fellowship opportunity for student immigrants and their allies.

Rev. James Lawson loves speaking to the next generation of activists and leaders. Here he speaks to interns in the Dream Summer program, a fellowship opportunity for student immigrants and their allies. Photo credit: UCLA Labor Center

The Rev. James Lawson Jr. has always understood the importance of preparation. While a college student in the 1940s with a passion for civil rights, he took inventory of what was going on in a Cold War-era United States and decided he needed to get involved. And given the government’s reaction to demonstrations, he better get prepared to go to jail. He read books about people, like Gandhi, who had been imprisoned for being conscientious objectors to what they viewed as immoral government policies.

When the Korean War erupted in 1950, Lawson stood by his pacifist beliefs and refused to join the U.S. military. He was sentenced to federal prison for violating the country’s draft laws.

The preparation for prison had paid off. Thanks to his reading, Lawson emerged after serving 13 months of a three-year sentence even more dedicated to the philosophy of nonviolence — the work, he says, God commissioned him to do.

During the ensuing decades Lawson would become one of the key leaders of the national civil rights and labor rights movements and a very close friend of Martin Luther King Jr. The two were staunch proponents of the power of nonviolent civil disobedience and believed deeply in how strength of will and dedication to a cause prepared one to endure extreme opposition.

But for a man who helped shape the course of history, nothing could have prepared him, in mind and heart, for the honor of being the namesake of the UCLA James Lawson Jr. Worker Justice Center.

“I am extremely grateful beyond any kind of words,” said Lawson, who with King and other advocates for justice, canonized the intersection between labor and civil rights, strengthening the movement for both through the practice of nonviolence. For Lawson, the worker justice center and labor studies program — through which he has taught his annual UCLA class on nonviolence and social movements for the last 20 years — symbolizes the labor movement’s potential to inspire social and economic change

“I hope that it will become a symbol of the powers of life that are in each of us,” Lawson said, “and how we can cultivate those powers and enable ourselves and our community in Los Angeles to become what it can yet become.”

The formal dedication will occur on Saturday, Dec. 11, when a host of labor, community and political leaders will join UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and others in honoring Lawson. Among those present will be California State Sen. María Elena Durazo, a former Lawson student who helped secure $15 million in state funding to renovate and rename the UCLA Labor Center’s historic MacArthur Park building, which houses the center’s research, education and service programs in the heart of Los Angeles.

Lawson’s imprint on history through nonviolence

Naming this particular building in Lawson’s honor was a perfect fit, according to friends, former students and colleagues. The activist and theologian played key roles in some of the most famous social and worker justice demonstrations in American history:

• providing nonviolence and spiritual guidance to the nine Black students (the Little Rock Nine) who enrolled at an all-white public school in Little Rock, Arkansas, to test the school integration order from the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education;

• spearheading the 1960 Nashville sit-in campaign to desegregate lunch counters marking a pivotal moment in launching the Civil Rights Movement;

• leading the Freedom Rides of 1961, which protested segregated bus terminals in the South, mobilizing a new generation of civil rights activists;

• organizing the Birmingham Campaign of 1963, which demonstrated against segregation in Alabama.

But Lawson is perhaps best known for his work behind the 1968 sanitation workers strike and his role in bringing King to Memphis, Tennessee, for the demonstration. Tragically, this is where Lawson’s dear friend was assassinated.

The two had previously led workshops together, during which Lawson partnered with King as his right-hand man in their mutual promotion of nonviolence. Among those who participated in those workshops, the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who was a student at American Baptist College in Nashville at the time.

By the early 1970s, Lawson moved to Los Angeles and became pastor of the Holman United Methodist Church, where he met leaders in the Los Angeles labor rights movement. Among these leaders was Durazo, then president of the hotel workers union of Los Angeles.

Durazo, who as a California state senator represents Central and East Los Angeles, said the mostly Latina hotel workers were inspired after he spoke to them. Lawson continued working with the union leading workshops about civil disobedience tactics like taking over the streets, hunger strikes and other peaceful shows of resistance to oppose the exploitation of hotel workers.

“He rekindled our movement through his teachings,” Durazo said.

For Lawson, the philosophy of nonviolence is “compassion in action.”

“Using the powers of the best that is in each of us … not only can we be transformed, but we can transform,” Lawson said.

Teaching UCLA students to be the leaders of the future generations

By the early 90s Lawson had cemented himself as a fixture in the Los Angeles labor movement, and it was a natural next step to join the UCLA Labor Center’s efforts to advance worker justice in Los Angeles County and beyond. The center, housed in the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, launched the first labor studies program in the University of California system.

Kent Wong, director of the center since 1991, has been a friend and student of Lawson for almost 40 years. While a staff attorney at the Service Employees International Union, Wong was part of a group of people that met Lawson at his church to participate in workshops centered on nonviolence. Among the group was Durazo and other community activists who would years later go on to elected office bringing with them a support for the labor movement, such as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, and City Councilmember Gilbert Cedillo.

“We were very grateful for his willingness to share his wisdom, his analysis and perspective,” said Wong, who in 2001 asked Lawson about teaching a UCLA class about nonviolence.

Image of Kent Wong and Rev. James Lawson

Kent Wong and Rev. James Lawson. Photo credit: Reed Hutchinson/UCLA

“It’s been very important to me that I’ve been teaching once a year at UCLA and that the opportunity has given me a chance to talk with a wide range of students,” said Lawson, who tailors the course to engage with current events but always through the lens of nonviolence and economic justice. “The emergence of nonviolence as a science of social change could be the most important paradigm called for in the 20th century.”

Even though Lawson’s students have included elected leaders like Durazo and Lewis, he said that each spring quarter’s new class of 300 UCLA students is always his most extraordinary one.

“I try to teach all the time that your big task in college is to be what you are and figure out what you are becoming, because that’s the immediate power that you can control and use,” he said.

The shift to online classes because of COVID-19 has allowed Lawson and Wong, who moderates the discussions, to bring in guest speakers who would not have flown to Los Angeles. In April, UCLA students heard from Angeline Butler, civil rights icon and former student leader of the Nashville sit-in movement. In May, anti-apartheid activist the Rev. Allan Boesak spoke to UCLA students from South Africa.

It comes as no surprise that Lawson plans to teach the course again in spring 2022. “This capacity, to be 93 years old and be agile, enabled to live well is a gift. I’m going to use it to expose as many different people as I can to the fact that we do not have to be a violent culture.”

Lawson, who received the UCLA medal, the campus’s highest honor, in 2018, said he humbly approves of the name dedication and is appreciative of the incorporation of “worker justice” in the name, a concept that to him is the future and hope for the nation.

“You’re in awe of the American history that exists in that man,” said Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and a friend of Lawson. The 800,000-members federation, which is helping host Saturday’s dedication ceremony, has a partnership with the UCLA Labor Center that goes back several decades as Wong and Herrera, the highest-ranking union leader in Los Angeles, found themselves in the same circles.

Herrera said he’s pleased that the name dedication will tie Lawson to a place like UCLA, as well as recognize Lawson’s fight for workers as well as social justice for Black Americans.

“I think this is a huge opportunity to tell the American public that this man is a historic icon,” Herrera said. “He shouldn’t be left out of the history books.”

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

 

https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/RevLawsonspeakingtointernsDreamSummer.jpg 1584 2376 Lucy Berbeo https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Lucy Berbeo2021-12-13 12:13:312021-12-13 13:54:00A perfect tribute: UCLA names labor center building in honor of Rev. James Lawson Jr.
Photo of Aomar BoumJoel Mason-Gaines/USHMM

Aomar Boum believes in the power of stories to unite

November 16, 2021/in Box 2, Our Stories Page /by Kristina Hordzwick

UCLA’s newly appointed Maurice Amado Professor of Sephardic Studies says sharing narratives is a key to understanding, tolerance

By Jonathan Riggs

Photo of Aomar Boum

Aomar Boum is an internationally respected socio-cultural anthropologist with expertise in Sephardic Jewish history and culture. Photo Credit: Joel Mason-Gaines/USHMM

Aomar Boum is convinced that we are all connected through our stories.

As a professor of anthropology and of Near Eastern languages and cultures at UCLA, Boum takes a global perspective on the history of Jews from Morocco, including those who settled in Los Angeles, New York or Montreal, while also examining the larger context of minorities in the Middle East and North Africa.

Although he initially encountered some resistance as a Muslim scholar studying the traditions and history of a different faith, Boum has always believed in the importance of research to bridge conceptual gaps and bring together different communities.

“Stories, connections and communities are at the root of everything I do, and they inspire me deeply,” Boum said. “Beyond the research, beyond the books I write, what ultimately matters most is sharing these stories of how Jewish and Muslim families lived and continue their lives in Morocco, Iraq, Egypt —anywhere — so others can learn something from them, share it with someone else and so on.”

Raised on a subsistence farm in southeastern Morocco, Boum is an internationally respected socio-cultural anthropologist with expertise in Sephardic Jewish history and culture. An affiliated faculty member of the Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, Boum was recently newly appointed UCLA’s Maurice Amado Professor of Sephardic Studies.

“I see this appointment as an honor, opportunity and obligation,” he said. “It is an honor because this is one of the most important chairs of Sephardic Studies in the United States. It’s an opportunity because it will allow me to push the scope of research in this field to dig deeper from the perspective of Muslim–Jewish relations. And it’s an obligation to add to the incredibly rich work in this area by faculty and students both around the globe and here at UCLA.”

The author and co-editor of four books, including “Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco” and “The Holocaust and North Africa,” Boum sees great potential in what his appointment will mean for his work, both on campus and beyond — including the new Moroccan Jewish studies program he’s helping launch at the Leve Center. He is also excited for Los Angeles’ annual Morocco Day celebration on Nov. 19.

The key to spreading knowledge and ultimately tolerance and progress, Boum said, is sharing stories with one another. To that end, he’s writing a graphic novel with graphic artist Nadjib Berber, telling the true story of a German Jew who fled the Nazis during World War II and comes into contact with other refugees with their own powerful stories to share.

“Especially today, with antisemitism and Islamophobia and different kinds of group-based hatred so prevalent, it’s crucial to reach people however you can — in their own language — to tell these stories of our shared humanity,” Boum said. “Ultimately, I believe that’s our mission at the Leve Center and at UCLA, to keep creating and sharing exceptional scholarship to counter misinformation and ignorance.”

As a storyteller and a literature lover, Boum draws deep inspiration from the character studies and finely crafted plots of classic novels. Not surprisingly, he recognizes the same creative, shaping hand in the tale of his own life. His first grant came from the namesake of the chair he now holds, the Maurice Amado Foundation, and launched his research career.

“I am an anthropologist who believes in the power of historical narratives to bring us all together, no matter who we are,” Boum said. “My family still lives in the community in which I grew up, and I love taking my daughter to see them. Opening minds and hearts — whether you live in an affluent L.A. neighborhood or a poor place across the world with no drinkable household water — allows us to see that, without a doubt, all of our stories here on Earth are ultimately intertwined.”

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

For more of Our Stories at the College click here.

https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Boum2-copy.jpg 1198 1510 Kristina Hordzwick https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Kristina Hordzwick2021-11-16 11:37:282021-11-16 11:43:44Aomar Boum believes in the power of stories to unite
Evangelina Vaccaro playing beneath pier at the beach

A decade after gene therapy, children born with deadly immune disorder remain healthy

November 3, 2021/in Box 2 /by Chris Ibarra
Evangelina Vaccaro playing beneath pier at the beach

Evangelina Vaccaro playing beneath pier at the beach

By Sarah C.P. Williams

Over a decade ago, UCLA physician-scientists began using a pioneering gene therapy they developed to treat children born with a rare and deadly immune system disorder. They now report that the effects of the therapy appear to be long-lasting, with 90% of patients who received the treatment eight to 11 years ago still disease-free.

ADA-SCID, or adenosine deaminase–deficient severe combined immunodeficiency, is caused by mutations in the gene that creates the ADA enzyme, which is essential to a functioning immune system. For babies with the disease, exposure to everyday germs can be fatal, and if untreated, most will die within the first two years of life.

In the gene therapy approach detailed in the new paper, Dr. Donald Kohn of UCLA and his colleagues removed blood-forming stem cells from each child’s bone marrow, then used a specially modified virus, originally isolated from mice, to guide healthy copies of the ADA gene into the stem cells’ DNA. Finally, they transplanted the cells back into the children’s bone marrow. The therapy, when successful, prompts the body to produce a continuous supply of healthy immune cells capable of fighting infections. Because the transplanted stem cells are the baby’s own, there is no risk of rejection.

Kohn and his team report in the journal Blood that of the 10 children who received the one-time treatment between 2009 and 2012 as part of a phase 2 clinical trial, nine have continued to remain stable. The study follows a 2017 paper, also published in Blood, on the initial success of the treatment in those nine children.

“What we saw in the first few years was that this therapy worked, and now we’re able to say that it not only works, but it works for more than 10 years,” said Kohn, senior author of the study and a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA. “We hope someday we’ll be able to say that these results last for 80 years.”

While not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration, gene therapy for ADA-SCID represents a potentially life-changing option for children who otherwise must undergo twice-weekly injections of the ADA enzyme — an expensive and time-consuming treatment — or find a matched bone marrow donor who can provide a transplant of healthy stem cells.

10 years after: Assessing and refining gene therapy for ADA-SCID

Of the 10 children who received the therapy between 2009 and 2012, most were babies; the one older child, who was 15 at the time, was the only participant whose immune function was not restored by the treatment, suggesting the therapy is most effective in younger children, Kohn said.

The other nine children were successfully treated and have remained healthy enough that none have needed enzyme replacement or a bone marrow transplant to support their immune systems in the years since.

However, the researchers did find significant immune system differences among the successfully treated children roughly a decade on. In particular, they observed that some had a nearly hundred times more blood-forming stem cells containing the corrected ADA gene than others, as well as more copies of the gene in each cell.

Those with more copies of the ADA gene in more cells had the best immune function, Kohn noted, while some of those with lower levels of the gene replacement required regular infusions of immunoglobulins, a type of immune protein, to keep their systems fully functional. More work is needed, he said, to understand the best way of achieving high levels of the gene in all patients.

“What these results tell us is that there’s a formula for optimal success for ADA-SCID, and it involves correcting more than 5 to 10% of each patient’s blood-forming stem cells,” said Kohn, who is also a distinguished professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. “The relationship between the levels of gene-corrected cells and immune system function has never been shown so clearly before.”

The researchers also found that in some children’s stem cells, the treatment disturbed genes involved in cell growth — a phenomenon seen in other studies of similar gene therapies. While over time this could potentially lead to the improper activation of the growth genes, turning the cells cancerous, Kohn noted that none of the patients in the clinical trial had this problem.

Still, that safety concern is one of the reasons Kohn and his colleagues are developing a new ADA-SCID gene therapy using a different type of virus to deliver the corrected ADA gene that is much less likely to affect growth genes. This newer approach successfully treated 48 of 50 babies who received the therapy in clinical trials at UCLA, University College London and the National Institutes of Health. And while the approach used a decade ago may no longer remain the top candidate for FDA approval going forward, Kohn says its enduring success is encouraging for the field in general.

“Knowing that a gene therapy can have this lasting effect in ADA-SCID for more than a decade is important for our path forward as we develop new gene therapies for this and other diseases,” he said.

The research was supported by an FDA Office of Orphan Products Development award, the National Gene Vector Biorepository, the National Human Genome Research Institute intramural program, the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ADA-ScidKid_15351822-4c5d-4cd1-a8ad-2e83ebe56770-prv.jpg 876 1200 Chris Ibarra https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Chris Ibarra2021-11-03 08:29:182021-11-03 10:41:23A decade after gene therapy, children born with deadly immune disorder remain healthy
Covid in heart muscle: Microscope images showing (left) healthy heart muscle cells and (right) heart muscle cells that have been infected and damaged by the SARS-CoV-2 virus (in green). Credit: UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center/JCI Insight

Life Sciences faculty part of UCLA team studying how COVID-19 causes multiple organ failure

October 12, 2021/in Box 2 /by Kristina Hordzwick

Researchers from the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA– including molecular, cell, and developmental biology professors Arjun Deb and Matteo Pellegrini, and microbiology immunology and molecular genetics professor, Jake Lusis– have received a $6.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how the SARS-CoV-2 virus causes damage throughout the body. 

Covid in heart muscle: Microscope images showing (left) healthy heart muscle cells and (right) heart muscle cells that have been infected and damaged by the SARS-CoV-2 virus (in green). Credit: UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center/JCI Insight

Microscope images showing (left) healthy heart muscle cells and (right) heart muscle cells that have been infected and damaged by the SARS-CoV-2 virus (in green). Photo Credit: UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center/JCI Insight

$6.2 million NIH grant to support UCLA study of how COVID-19 causes multiple organ failure

By Tiare Dunlap

Researchers from the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have received a $6.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how the SARS-CoV-2 virus causes damage throughout the body.

The Director’s Transformative Research Award was presented through the NIH’s prestigious High Risk, High Reward program, which supports creative and unconventional approaches to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research.

What makes SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, so dangerous for some people is that although it is a respiratory virus, it can wreak havoc on almost any organ in the body. Studies have found that people who are hospitalized with COVID-19 and have damage to organs other than their lungs have a considerably higher risk for death. Even some people who recover from severe COVID-19 are left with long-term symptoms related to the damage to their other organs.

“It was a big puzzle at the start of the pandemic, and remains a big puzzle today, as to why a respiratory virus, which primarily affects the lungs, would cause such widespread damage throughout the body,” said Dr. Arjun Deb, director of the cardiovascular medicine research theme at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “We need to figure out how this is happening in order to develop treatments to stop it.”

Deb is leading the UCLA research team, which also is made up of professors Vaithilingaraja Arumugaswami, Thomas Graeber, Jake Lusis and Matteo Pellegrini. The scientists will draw upon their combined expertise in cardiology, virology, metabolomics, genetics, genomics and computational biology to investigate how SARS-CoV-2 affects tissues throughout the body. To do so, they’ll conduct studies using a unique genetically engineered mouse model of COVID-19 that Deb and Arumugaswami developed in 2020.

Most mice used in COVID-19 research have to be modified to have the human ACE2 protein, which SARS-CoV-2 relies on to infect cells. But early studies of COVID-19 in mice relied on animals that only had the human ACE2 protein in their lungs. To better replicate cases in which COVID-19 affects other organs in humans, the researchers engineered mice to have human ACE2 in their hearts and other vital organs. They then infected these animals by injecting SARS-CoV-2 into their bloodstreams.

“The effects were startling,” said Arumugaswami, an associate professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the medical school. “Within four days, the mice got very sick. Within seven days, they had lost 20% to 30% of their body weight and stopped moving.”

The mice had progressive organ failure that continued even after the virus had cleared from their bodies, mirroring the long-term damage in some people with COVID-19.

Thanks to Pellegrini, Graeber and Lusis’ expertise in single-cell genomics, computational modeling and metabolomics — the study of molecules called metabolites — the research in mice led the scientists to hypothesize that COVID-19 causes irreversible changes in an organism’s metabolism, the process by which cells create the energy they need to live.

Thanks to funding from the new grant, the group will seek to identify the genetic, metabolic and functional changes that occurred in each organ in both early and advanced stages of infection, and they’ll make their findings available to other researchers who are studying how the virus affects vital organs.

They also plan to compare the key changes they observe in mice with changes to blood and tissue samples from people with severe COVID-19. Their ultimate goal: to identify drugs that could prevent or disrupt the changes to cells’ metabolism, which could help reduce or eliminate the disease’s ability to damage vital organs.

“We suspect that the metabolic changes in the various organs will follow similar patterns,” said Graeber, a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology and director of the UCLA Metabolomics Center. “If that turns out to be the case, we will look for a single drug that could be widely applicable, regardless of which organs are affected.”

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Covid-heart-muscle-resizedfornewsroom.png 780 1171 Kristina Hordzwick https://www.college.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Uxd_Blk_College-e1557344896161.png Kristina Hordzwick2021-10-12 13:43:112021-10-12 13:43:35Life Sciences faculty part of UCLA team studying how COVID-19 causes multiple organ failure
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