Biophysics project receives about $1.5 million from NIH

UC Irvine professors Clare Yu and her collaborator, Steven Gross, have received about $1.5 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health to study transportation networks within living cells. The breakdown of these systems has been associated with types of blindness, kidney disease, birth defects and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. This is the first substantial award from NIH to the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and it is a good example of interdisciplinary research at UCI. Yu (pictured) is a professor of physics and astronomy, and Gross is an associate professor of developmental and cell biology with a joint appointment in physics.