News & Events

Description goes herehe microbiome shapes development of insulin-producing cells in infancy, leading to long-term changes in metabolism and diabetes risk, new research in mice has found.

The results could ultimately help doctors reduce the risk of type 1 diabetes—or potentially even restore lost metabolic function in adulthood—by providing specific gut microbes that help the pancreas grow and heal.

Woodrats (Neotoma spp.) are one of the only animals that can tolerate large quantities of creosote, a shrub with leaves coated in a chemical cocktail of poisonous resin. The critter’s constitution has astounded biologists and represents a decades-long debate—over evolutionary time, how do animals adapt to a deadly diet? Do detoxification enzymes become more specialized or more abundant?

A healthy human adult contains about 100 trillion bacterial cells, plus plenty of viruses, fungi, and other microscopic organisms. Together, they make up the microbiome, a vast community that changes how we digest food, how we respond to disease threats, and even how we think. But scientists are just scratching the surface of how our microscopic roommates affect our health.

Description goes hFrom multicellular organisms, like us humans, to single-cell bacteria, living things are subject to attack by viruses. Plants, animals and even bacteria have evolved strategies to combat pathogens, including viruses that can threaten health and life. Talia Backman, a University of Utah doctoral candidate wrapping up her final year in the School of Biological Sciences, found her project and niche in studying bacteria and the viruses that infect them.

Our environment has a profound effect on our health, but the specifics of those effects can vary widely from person to person. Wildfire smoke that one person might find merely annoying could be debilitating to another. And the variable health consequences of environmental exposures aren’t always immediate or obvious, even when serious.

Two labs at the University of Utah’s Department of Chemistry joined forces to improve imaging tools that may soon enable scientists to better observe signaling in functioning cells and other molecular-scale processes central to life.

High-impact discoveries at University of Utah Health are transforming how we think about the causes of diabetes and solutions to combat the disease. These advances could hardly come at a better time. The disease is a big problem in the U.S., leading to an estimated $327 billion in health care costs. What’s more, while 1 in 10 American adults have diabetes, 1 in 3 have prediabetes, a sign that they are well on their way to developing the disease.

For people with autism, constipation, diarrhea, and abdominal pain often go along with the social struggles and repetitive behaviors that define the condition. This has prompted many to wonder whether gastrointestinal (GI) problems arise due to autism’s behavioral or sensory features, or whether they might instead contribute to them.