Local brothers hold new volunteer effort for Voices for Children
Inspired by their successful holiday season donation drive last year, La Jolla brothers Will and Noah Stupin planned a follow-up effort to benefit the nonprofit Voices for Children.
On March 31, the brothers walked from Torrey Pines to Bird Rock with their parents to raise awareness and funds for the organization, which works to help children in foster care by providing them with court-appointed special advocates, or CASAs.
To prepare for the walk, Will, 9, and Noah, 7, wrote letters to local businesses seeking sponsorships. They displayed sponsors’ logos on a shirt they wore during the walk.
The duo raised $400 with support from businesses such as Paradisea, Joshua’s Pest Control, La Jolla Village Endodontics, Consumer’s Title Co. and Puesto.
In November, Will and Noah completed a donation drive in which they collected 434 books and 163 stuffed animals for Voices for Children’s annual holiday event.
Their mother, Taylor Stupin, said they plan to continue their efforts to support foster children, including a bake sale to come.
La Jolla-based surfers take third in state competition
A La Jolla-based surfing team placed third in the state in both the longboard and shortboard divisions during the recent Scholastic Surf Series competition for high school students in Oceanside.
The team includes Annabelle Wirths Tihanyi, Astrid Egan, Coral MacIntyre, Noya Slater Cohen and Olivia Gutierrez and is sponsored by Surf Diva Surf Shop, Rusty Surfboards and Matuse.
“They did fantastic,” said Surf Diva co-owner and team parent Izzy Tihanyi.
La Jolla study looks at how mosquito-borne viruses attack the body
Zika virus and dengue virus are very close relatives. Both are mosquito-borne flaviviruses and both specialize in infecting a host’s dendritic cells.
But a new study led by scientists at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology and UC San Diego indicates the two viruses have vastly different ways of making us sick.
Zika virus uses stealth, slipping into dendritic cells and blocking them from alerting nearby infection-fighting T cells to danger.
Dengue virus prefers shock and awe, pushing dendritic cells to churn out molecules called pro-inflammatory cytokines, which send the immune system into overdrive. The virus spreads to new host cells as the body grapples with the overwhelming immune response.
Understanding the different infection strategies is key to developing lifesaving vaccines, according to LJI professor Sujan Shresta, whose team is working to develop vaccines that harness T cells to combat Zika, dengue and other flaviviruses with pandemic potential.
“Understanding how these viruses manipulate the immune response can help guide the development of the best vaccine approach,” Shresta said.
Alzheimer’s panel discussion set for La Jolla
The La Jolla-based Sanford Burnham Prebys medical research institute will present a panel discussion on aging and Alzheimer’s disease at 3 p.m. Wednesday, April 16, in the Victor E. LaFave III Memorial Auditorium at SBP, 10905 Road to the Cure.
During the discussion, scientists will share details of their research and insights into Alzheimer’s, while Muffy Walker, author of the forthcoming novel “Memory Weavers,” will provide an overview of her book, with a signing session to follow.
The discussion is free, but donations will be accepted to support further research. To find out more or reserve a spot, visit sbpdiscovery.org and click on “News” to find “Events.”
La Jolla scientists looking at role of ‘dark DNA’
For more than 50 years, scientists have puzzled over what is known as “dark DNA,” or heterochromatin, which makes up about half of human genetic material. But scientists at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology are starting to unravel its role in human cells.
In the past few years, scientists have linked weakening heterochromatin to aging, premalignancy, cancer and autoimmune disease.
According to LJI, a growing body of evidence indicates that heterochromatin’s proper functioning is critical for maintaining healthy cells. Heterochromatin contains tens of thousands of units of dangerous DNA known as “transposable elements,” or TEs. They remain silently “buried” in heterochromatin in normal cell, but under many pathological conditions they can “wake up” and occasionally even “jump” into our regular genetic code.
“You can think of heterochromatin as a prison for transposable elements,” said LJI professor Anjana Rao, lead author of a new study. “When heterochromatin loses its normal suppressive function, TEs escape and, in parallel, the health of cells declines.”
The new research may prove important for future drug development, suggesting that scientists might stop cancer growth through new avenues such as restraining TE activity in cancer cells.
$1 million Pfizer donation gives UCSD cancer center a boost
With a $1 million donation from Pfizer, Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego in La Jolla has secured key support for a program intended to enhance early cancer detection and prevention efforts.
According to the National Cancer Institute, roughly half of cancers are detected at later stages. Moores’ efforts will “support prevention and screening across tumor types such as colorectal, breast, cervical and prostate cancers,” according to UC San Diego.
To learn more about Moores Cancer Center, visit moores.ucsd.edu.
Mental health effort gets $1 million prize
The VAPA (Visual and Performing Arts) Foundation was awarded the $1 million grand prize of the inaugural Prebys Sparx Prize, a grant initiative launched by the Prebys Foundation to support innovative collaborations in arts education. The winning project was co-led by partner Expressive Arts Institute, led by Judith Greer Essex, and La Jolla resident Elizabeth Tobias.
Tobias is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and expressive arts educator.
The initiative was designed to launch an arts-based social-emotional learning curriculum for 25 San Diego schools that have limited arts programming. This is to be accomplished through a blend of visual arts, writing, music, movement and drama to promote students’ mental health and behavioral well-being.
International award goes to San Diego French American School
San Diego French American School in La Jolla is the winner of the Palmes du Réseau d’Enseignement Français à l’Étranger, an award honoring contributions by French-accredited schools around the world.
The honor was announced at a ceremony in Paris on March 13.
San Diego French American won in the Action Innovante, or innovative action, category for producing fruits and vegetables in a project that “reflects the school’s commitment to fostering sustainability, community engagement and innovative practices in education,” according to the school.
A total of 291 projects were submitted by 181 French-accredited schools from 79 countries. Of those, 71 projects were in the innovative action category. ♦
