COVID-19

Toshiki “Toshi” Tajima is a physicist in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, and he’s one of our faculty who, over the last few months, retooled his scientific skillset to help stem the still-encroaching tide of the coronavirus pandemic. Recently, Tajima, along with a team of researchers from across campus and around the world, formulated an idea that they call a “nanobroom” — a devise made of carbon nanotubes that surgeons might one day insert into the lungs of a COVID-19 patient and…

Giuli Zelaya misses her rats. She hasn’t seen them in months, because when the coronavirus pandemic hit, she, along with most of the rest of UCI’s undergraduates, had to abandon campus. It doesn’t matter that Zelaya will one day euthanize the rats as part of research into THC’s neurological effects — she still misses the rodents. “It breaks my heart,” said Zelaya, who’s majoring in neurobiology.

Irvine, Calif., June 3, 2020 — “We’re all in this together” is a commonly heard phrase during this global pandemic, as much of the world practices social distancing. And now researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions have shown that there is some scientific validity to this assertion.

Not only can Blu-ray lasers replay the “Harry Potter” series 50 times over, they may possibly help kill the coronavirus.

The international response to the coronavirus pandemic has so far slashed global carbon emissions by more than 8%, according to detailed estimates from a pair of independent research teams. That’s roughly three times the annual emissions of Italy. But energy consumption is already rebounding in China and elsewhere, and the pandemic could register as little more than a blip in the climate system as government-imposed lockdowns come to an end.

Scientists who normally study how human activities impact the planet have been given a rare opportunity over the past few months to observe what happens when industry, transportation and other sources of carbon emissions are curtailed.

Irvine, Calif., May 19, 2020 – A new weapon in the arsenal against the coronavirus may be sitting in your home entertainment console. A team led by physicist Chris Barty of the University of California, Irvine is researching the use of diodes from Blu-ray digital video disc devices as deep-ultraviolet laser photon sources to rapidly disinfect surfaces and the indoor air that swirls around us.

In this conversation, three experts discussed climate change and air quality during COVID-19. Barbara Finlayson-Pitts (Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Co-Director of AirUCI, UCI), Steve…

Professor Albert Siryaporn couldn’t have known it, but research he and a team of scientists published last year in December would, just a few months later, position him and his lab to combat the raging coronavirus pandemic.

In this lecture, which took place on May 6, 2020, Professor Rachel Martin discusses her work on developing an antiviral for COVID-19. Professor Rachel Martin is a UCI faculty member in the…

For our first conversation, we are thrilled to have three experts working at the forefront of COVID-19 diagnostics: John Gerace (President, DiaSorin Molecular), Reg Penner (Chancellor’s Professor of…

Irvine, Calif., April 29, 2020 — Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have developed a new mathematical machine-intelligence-based technique that spatially delineates highly complicated cell-to-cell and gene-gene interactions. The powerful method could help with the diagnosis and treatment of diseases ranging from cancer to COVID-19 through quantifying crosstalks between “good” cells and “bad” cells.