“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is

success.” – Henry Ford

This may sound weird, but you know when you’re lying in bed too excited or too stressed

to sleep, and you just stare at the ceiling and think? I do that almost every night, except I’m not

thinking about a project, test or even that pizza I’m going to get tomorrow — I’ve got science

on my mind. I get excited thinking about projects that aim to cure diseases or help a poor

community gain access to clean water. I once spent an entire night thinking about a research

paper that addressed researchers’ hopes to grow back limbs we have lost (search HOX genes

and regenerative medicine).

During one of these late night sessions, I wondered what kinds of methods were being

used to help people who have lost their sight. One scenario that came to mind was the X-
Men character Cyclops and the pair of shades he wears on his head to see and shoot lasers.

I wondered, can there be a device like his shades that allows blind people to see? It turns

out there already is. The U.S. Department of Energy started working on the Artificial Retina

Project in 2002 to help restore sight to those with debilitating eye diseases. The concept they

used resembles what powers Cyclops’ glasses, and they created a device that allows users to

effectively “see.”

The Department of Energy reported that federal funding for this project ended in 2011.

In the nine years the project was funded, the Department produced three iterations of the

device which was life-altering to those who received them. The device, a pair of sunglasses,

has cameras that captures what’s in front of the user and sends that information wirelessly to

a processor. The processor then sends electric signals to a small thin pad on the retina of the

user’s eye and allows the user to see what the glasses are seeing.

Perhaps most importantly, the project required the interest and teamwork of many

different disciplines. The department had labs, universities, individuals, private industries and

more working on it. Scientists from a wide breadth of fields, including engineering, chemistry,

szphysics, biology (bio and physics together?!), and psychology, combined their expertise and

created this revolutionary device.

Because funding ended in 2011, the future of expanding the artificial retina project is

with my generation — us students. As we pursue our education, we must be reminded of the

many reasons we are here. We have a chance to enact real change for millions of lives, and this

retina project is one of the many examples we can leap into. Who better to enhance this than

students like ourselves?

I applaud our university and the many achievements it has made in the areas of science,

technology and health. I believe we can do better. One thing that has always driven me up

the wall about large universities is the disconnect people might feel from areas outside of their

discipline. Since research universities like UC Davis are so large, many undergraduates tend to

stick to their own area of study. The retina project brought scientists from many fields together

— working under one “roof” so to speak, and sharing ideas as well as teaching others. As the

task of expanding on the retina project and spearheading like-minded ideas has been given to

our generation, why don’t we create a unified effort within our university to make these projects

Cue the “One World, One UC Davis” mantra.

I’m talking about an ongoing research opportunity — run by our university students

— that brings folks from different disciplines together to contribute to solving problems. By

combining the power of our faculty with the unique and inquisitive minds of our students, we can

approach a problem and work as one family. I don’t mind if we don’t solve it — just creating a

hands-on, team approach would tell our student body that great ideas can be collaborative and

use each others’ skills to solve problems.

The artificial retina project brought a team from different backgrounds to produce a life-
changing result. While the product is amazing and its benefits are important to learn about, the

collaborative effort in which this project was conducted had me thinking,

One World, One UC Davis — let’s work on making that a reality.

Want to discuss what projects you think about in bed (I swear I’m not creepy)? Shoot

UMAYR SUFI an email at uwsufi@ucdavis.edu or tweet him @umsufi.

This is my first year living in a house in Davis and I was really excited

— not because of the amount of leaves I get to rake, but because of the

invitation I found on my door to my neighborhood’s block party. The Ninth

Davis Neighbors’ Night Out (DNNO) took place on Sunday, and organizers

set the aim of breaking the Guinness World Record for “Most

Neighborhood Potlucks On the Same Day.”

DNNO is part of the City of Davis’s Good Neighbor Initiative, which

was created to promote understanding and effective communication

between neighbors. The way DNNO works is that multiple people sign

up as “party sponsors” who are in charge of sending out invitations to the

event or have the option of getting invitations directly from the city. When

I went out to my neighborhood’s block party and met our party sponsor,

Susan, she said that it was her second year as a sponsor. The neighbors

each pitched in by bringing a dish and their lawn chairs, thereby making the

workload more manageable for her. The only thing that troubled Susan was

wondering how she was going to finish all the leftover food.

The City of Davis highlights that DNNO is important because there

are 64,000 residents living in nine square miles; however, I think that every

city could benefit from a mass neighborhood block party, regardless of its

Another way to build relationships with those living near you is

through social media. A social network that has the potential to change the

way people gather is Nextdoor.com, which is essentially a social network

for neighborhoods. The City of Davis promotes this site on the infographics

they provide about the Good Neighbor Initiative. Curious to see if my

neighborhood had a “profile,” I created an account on Nextdoor.com and

found one for Central Davis. Although I am still waiting to be verified via

mail (see, it’s secure) I already found listings about the need for a

babysitter and a potential car break-in. It’s like the neighborhood crime

watch group you never had. Also, the fact that I could potentially find a job

(and a job on the very street I live on, no less) is amazing. Normally, when I

use babysitting sites, they require me to bike long distances in the wee

hours of the morning; therefore the locality of these postings is appreciated.

I could personally find Nextdoor.com useful because it might lead

to me meeting more people on my block than the actual block party

established by DNNO. The turnout for my personal neighborhood was

15 people and I know there were a few faces missing (like my neighbors

that play music loud at night – hey, it’s OK, no hard feelings – I wanted to

get to know you too). Some possible ways to encourage greater turnout

is using rewards as an incentive and establishing more of a face-to-face

connection when passing out invitations. It’s a big step in itself to have a

night like this, and one of the many reasons I feel blessed to go to school

in Davis; however I am looking forward to seeing DNNO’s awareness

and attendance grow, and possibly be promoted through websites like

Nextdoor.com.

To get her spinach dip recipe or to find out how to win the hearts of your

own neighbors you can email NICOLE NELSON at nsnelson@ucdavis.edu.

As humans, when we need to get things done, we talk. We see our way of communication as special and only available to us. Well, it may be true in some instances, but communication is available to all living things around us, and even living things that are inside of us.

Bacteria are present in you and on you in a huge way. According to an Anaerobe science journal study done on our “gut” flora, we have approximately 10 times as many bacterial cells in us or on us compared to human cells at any given time. When someone mentions bacteria, we like to think about the evil (pathogenic) bacteria that harm us. Before you start engulfing yourself with antibacterial spray, these bacteria on us are harmless or even beneficial to our body.

Am I telling you that these colonies of bacteria can actually be good for you? In a sense, yes! Bacteria help you digest your food, keep your stomach feeling just right and cover your skin with an extra protective layer. They have to have some way of doing all of this — and the way they do it is through talking. Bacteria talk to each other and are able to amplify their effect on the environment. Even though these good bacteria communicate to help you, bad bacteria can also communicate to harm you. The trick is finding a way to manipulate this communication to get rid of the bad bacteria and even help the good bacteria work better.

The drug industry’s current solution of antibiotics that kill bacteria (good and bad) is not helpful. Understanding how bacteria communicate is essential to creating a better way to combating bacteria. Professor Bonnie Bassler of Princeton University wrote a paper published in the Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology, and I looked into her research for a solution.

The mechanism of how bacteria communicate is termed quorum sensing. Quorum-sensing bacteria have the ability to produce and release chemicals to recognize similar and different bacteria in their vicinity. Instead of one bacterium acting alone, the community of bacteria use this quorum-sensing ability to produce a large response or action. Imagine 100 Billy Mays selling you OxiClean — that’s some powerful quorum sensing. Professor Bassler also found that bacteria can use this sensing not just to talk, but to talk to other species of bacteria around it, and even disrupt the negative communication between bacteria.

This look at the quorum-sensing ability can produce big benefits. Consider the benefits of therapies and drugs if they were manufactured around suppressing or enhancing quorum sensing. Many of us have a notion that antibiotics could simply do the trick; however, antibiotics target bacteria by a simple “kill all” system. This system does not work most of the time, as bacteria evolve quickly (probably in the same amount of time it took you to finish this sentence), causing antibiotics to become ineffective. The quorum-sensing effect holds more value because of its ability to disrupt the communication of the bacteria, rendering their actions useless. It also gives us the ability to zero in on what type of bacteria we want to target, so there are no friendly casualties to bacteria that help us!

Professor Bassler explored game-changing properties of bacteria that I think research universities should further fund and explore. Funding further quorum sensing research would change the medical industry for the better. Simplifying antibiotics to target bacterial communication could eliminate the need for antibiotics that you would have to take several times to get better. What I hope we see in the near future is an antibiotic that walks the walk and talks the talk — I guess I should say “ends the talk,” but you know what I mean.

If you want to discuss how bacteria changed your life with UMAYR SUFI email him at uwsufi@ucdavis.edu or send a tweet his way @umsufi.