2024-2025 Faculty Lecture Series

October 8, 2024

THE HIDDEN COSTS OF PESTICIDES: EXPLORING HEALTH EFFECTS AND THE VALUE OF REDUCING EXPOSURES IN INDIVIDUALS AND COMMUNITIES

José Ricardo Suárez, MD, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor, The Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health & Human Longevity Science, UC San Diego

This presentation delves into the often-overlooked consequences of pesticide exposure on human health, emphasizing the risks faced by individuals and communities alike. Through a detailed examination of recent studies and health data, the talk highlights the various acute and chronic health implications linked to pesticide exposure, with a focus on vulnerable populations such as children and agricultural communities. Moreover, the presentation explores practical strategies and community-driven initiatives aimed at reducing pesticide exposure.

November 12, 2024

MICROBES: THE HIDDEN LINK BETWEEN FOOD AND MOOD

Rob Knight, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics, UC San Diego School of Medicine; Professor, Shu Chien-Gene Lay Department of Bioengineering and Department of Computer Science & Engineering, UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering; Founding Director, UC San Diego Center for Microbiome Innovation; Wolfe Family Endowed Chair in Microbiome Research, Rady Children’s Hospital

We are discovering how the human microbiome impacts many areas of human health and disease, including aging, mood, sleep, memory, and individualized effects of diet. In this talk, I will describe how human microbes provide hidden links between food and mood, and how our research helps build predictive models for many traits related to health from the microbiome.

December 3, 2024

GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN HEALTHCARE DELIVERY: ARE WE THERE YET?

Karandeep, Singh, MD, MMSc, Chief Health AI Officer, UC San Diego Health; Joan and Irwin Jacobs Endowed Chair in Digital Health Innovation, UC San Diego School of Medicine

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to address many use cases within healthcare, ranging from administrative tasks to clinical tasks. The early use cases of generative AI in healthcare centered on the use of OpenAI’s proprietary GPT-3.5 model as accessed through the ChatGPT website, which revealed issues related to hallucinations, inaccurate medical advice, and bias. In this talk, we will talk through the evolution of generative AI uses in healthcare, diving into the performance of open-source models and the art of prompt engineering. We will close with a look into multimodal applications, including in ambient scribing and medical imaging.

January 14, 2025

THE INEXTRICABLE LINKAGE OF OCEAN AND HUMAN HEALTH

William Gerwick, PhD, Distinguished Professor, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego

Human and ocean health are inextricably linked. The ocean is a source of joy and recreation, enhancing physical and mental well-being of humans. For billions of people, the ocean is an essential source of food, micronutrients, livelihoods, and generates more than US $2.0 trillion per year and provides over 30 million formal jobs. Ocean species have provided multiple essential medicines, some of the world’s strongest adhesives, and inspired new visions in architecture and engineering. The ocean is an essential component of the planetary systems that sustain all life on Earth. However, the health of the ocean is increasingly under threat, and the current threats to ocean health are largely of human origin. They range from the growing impacts of climate change (e.g. extreme weather events, ocean warming, melting polar ice, sea level rise, ocean acidification and ocean deoxygenation), to industrial fishing practices that damage ocean ecosystems and deplete fisheries, to oil and gas extraction, deep-sea mining and pollution. Plastic pollution derived from fossil fuels is pervasive and rapidly worsening. Since the Industrial Revolution, the marine environment has experienced a significant decline in biological diversity. Unless humanity takes urgent action to protect the ocean’s biological diversity, more species will be lost, the genetic and biological secrets these organisms hold will be gone forever, and their potential benefits for human health and well-being will never be realized.

February 11, 2025

UNDERSTANDING AND ADDRESSING MENTAL HEALTH IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Jyothi Mishra, PhD, MBA, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry; Founder & Director, NEATLabs, UC San Diego

This lecture will provide insights on how climate change affects mental health particularly in the context of climate change accelerated disasters. Dr. Mishra will describe her first ever study showing impacts on human neurobiology. She will also discuss climate resiliency and the benefits of community action and personal action.

March 11, 2025

FROM READING GENOMES TO INTERPRETING GENOMES TO RATIONALLY ENGINEERING GENOMES

Prashant Mali, PhD, Professor, Department of Bioengineering, UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering

My research is in the fields of synthetic biology and regenerative medicine, with a long-term focus on developing tools for enabling gene and cell based human therapeutics. In this regard, I helped pioneer CRISPRs and ADARs as powerful tools for DNA editing and RNA editing, with wide applications in both basic biology and human therapeutics. In this talk I will describe some of our ongoing work towards further developing and refining these platforms with a specific focus on human gene therapeutic applications.

April 8, 2025

IMMIGRATION TO CALIFORNIA

David Scott Fitzgerald, PhD, Professor of Sociology; Theodore E. Gildred Chair in U.S.-Mexican Relations; Co-Director, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, UC San Diego

If California were its own country, it would have the world’s fifth largest immigrant population. It has the most immigrants in the United States (almost 11 million) and the highest share in its population (27%). The way these newcomers are integrated into the state will shape California’s schools, workforce, businesses, public health, politics, and culture. Understanding the incorporation of immigrants and their descendants and how public policies affect integration is essential for the state’s future well-being.

May 13, 2025

HOW TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING

David G. Victor, PhD, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Cowhey Center on Global Transformation Chair in Innovation and Public Policy, School of Global Policy and Strategy; Director, Laboratory on International Law & Regulation, UC San Diego

Over the last fifteen years the world has started to make progress in controlling the pollution that causes climate change. While it is unlikely that we will stop climate change any time soon, the degree of warming expected over the coming century is likely to be much less than originally feared. Policy, technology and investment in clean energy systems are the key. This talk will discuss California’s role in that encouraging global picture, along with the new roles for the United States in cooperating with other countries.