News

Why Do Parents Keep Hearing About the Microbiome? Director Jonathan Eisen featured in NYT Parenting Article

What is the microbiome? The microbiome is a community of bacteria, fungi, viruses and other microbes that live inside your body and on its surface. Just as in a community of people, you’ll find both good and bad actors: Some of the microbes, like the gut bacteria that help you digest food, are beneficial, while others, like certain viruses, can be dangerous. Everyone’s microbiome differs, depending on your age, gender, diet and immune system. And the types of microbes on one part of the body may be different from those on another.

UC Davis Partners with the University of Sydney for International Workshop

The Food Security and Food Innovation Workshop was a two-day event organized by UC Davis in collaboration with the University of Sydney with the purpose of bringing together scientists from all over the world to discuss areas of potential research collaboration to address issues of global food security and create innovative food solutions. 

New Law Sponsored by UC Will Allow Commercialization of Discoveries in State Parks

Authored by Bill Dodd, D-Napa, SB-442 allows the California Department of Parks and Recreation to issue commercialization permits and set commercialization fees that can be used for the protection, conservation and restoration of resources of the state park system. The University of California, Davis, became a major driver for the new legislation after Johan Leveau, a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology, discovered a promising anti-fungal microbe in soils from the Jug Handle State Natural Reserve along the Mendocino Coast but found himself unable to translate his discovery into a public benefit because existing state law did not allow the commercialization of research materials from state parks.

Microbes Make Chemicals for Scent Marking in a Cat

Domestic cats, like many other mammals, use smelly secretions from anal sacs to mark territory and communicate with other animals. A new study from the Genome Center at the University of California, Davis, shows that many odiferous compounds from a male cat are actually made not by the cat, but by a community of bacteria living in the anal sacs. The work is published Sept. 13 in PLOS ONE.  “Cats use a lot of volatile chemicals for signaling, and they probably don’t make them all,” said David Coil, project scientist at the Genome Center and an author on the paper.  The experiment grew out of the KittyBiome Project started at the Genome Center by Holly Ganz, a postdoctoral researcher working with Coil and Jonathan Eisen, professor of evolution and ecology in the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences.