Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital awarded top nursing recognition in the country

The Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA received the highest honor for nursing in the country, according to a university press release.

The Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital was designated as a Magnet organization by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. The Magnet designation is awarded to health care organizations to recognize their merits in nursing and patient care, according to an article from American Nurse Today. This credential has been awarded to 7 percent of U.S. hospitals.

The Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, which is housed by the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, provides care in neuropsychiatric and behavioral health. The hospital has programs designed for child, adult and geriatric psychiatry. It also serves as a psychiatry teaching facility for the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

The hospital is currently ranked No. 8 in the U.S. for psychiatric care by U.S. News & World Report.

The Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital is one of the first psychiatric facilities to earn the Magnet credential. There are currently fewer than 500 Magnet-designated hospitals in the world.

To receive the Magnet designation, health care institutions must go through qualitative and quantitative evaluations displaying their commitments toward patient care and outcomes. Evaluations include an on-site inspection focused on examining the quality of leadership and teamwork in nursing, according to the press release.

The UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica also achieved Magnet Recognition in 2016, and the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center has been credentialed three times, with its most recent recognition in 2015.

New method in testing drug effectiveness shows promise in treating rare cancers

UCLA researchers developed a new method of testing the efficiency of different cancer treatments by growing tumors derived from patients’ cancer cells in labs.

A team of undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral faculty in the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center published a paper showing the technique was effective in determining the right treatments for patients with rare forms of cancer in Communications Biology, a Nature Research journal, Feb. 25.

Alice Soragni, senior author of the study, said she hopes this will expedite the process of finding more specific treatment for rare cancers. Currently, doctors analyze the entire genome of a tumor in order to study the effects of potential treatments, which typically takes a long time. Soragni said she and her team wanted to look for a quicker and more cost-effective approach.

“We want to be able to give each patient a specific drug,” Soragni said. “Every tumor is different and we really want to give patients something that will work for them instead of hoping the generic one will work.”

She said the researchers collected patients’ cells from an invasive surgery and placed them in a gel for about a week. Eventually, the cells multiplied until they created thousands of cells that all shared the same mutation.

Each patient’s sample of cells grew hundreds of organoids, or smaller and simplified versions of tumors, which researchers then injected with different cancer drugs to observe their responses. Researchers screened the results of the drugs using robots that can process the data within a few days.

Soragni said the team placed the cells in petri dishes in previous trials, but were only able to observe the cells’ growth into tumor organoids when they placed the cells in a gel environment with a distinct temperature and nutrients.

So far, the researchers have tested the organoids of four participants, and have made the most progress in determining effective treatments for a rare and aggressive form of ovarian cancer that affects only 200 women each year. Traditional chemotherapy for ovarian cancer had not been successful with this uncommon subtype of the disease.

“We can see unexpected drug sensitivities that one could not have even thought about,” Soragni said. “In the lab, we developed a mini tumor of the rare ovarian cancer tumor and … we found a very strong response to a very different specific targeted drug and that is exciting news.”

Sanaz Memarzadeh, a professor of gynecology, said there is already a high demand for this treatment technique, and the team is looking to expand to accommodate more patients.

Aside from analyzing more types of tumors, the team also aims to understand how the genome of certain tumors affects how they respond to different drugs.

The team is considering sequencing genomes of tumors that have been tested to understand if certain drugs respond more effectively to genomes with certain biomarkers.

BruinCard functions to be suspended for a day due to system updates

Students will not be able to use several BruinCard functions later this month for one day due to system updates.

The BruinCard service interruption will begin during spring break on March 25 at 5 a.m. and is expected to last until the end of the day, according to an email sent to UCLA students.

Students will not be able to make purchases with BruinCards at many on-campus merchants and all off-campus merchants during the update.

However, access to buildings will still be available throughout the interruption.

Students will also be unable to access most functions on the BruinCard website, such as making deposits, accessing accounts online, freezing the card, updating PIN or submitting any online forms, according to the email. BruinCards will not be printed on March 25, but will resume the following day as usual.

BruinCard holders will also not be able to check balances, purchase visitor cards or make deposits using BruinCard Payment Headquarter in Location machines. According to the email statement, the BruinCard office decided to schedule the system maintenance update during spring break to minimize its impact on students.

Andrew Torres, manager of UCLA Student Accounts & BruinCard Center, said in a separate email statement the service interruption is necessary to keep the service up-to-date and compatible with the Blackboard Transact System. He added the center also expects a service interruption next year.

The BruinCard office will be available for emergency technical support during the update and can be reached at 310-825-2336.

Art exhibit sheds light on lives of those affected by genetic disorders

An art exhibit in Powell Library showcases the hidden impact genetic disorders often have on the lives of UCLA students.

The exhibit, which opened Feb. 19 and will remain open through March in the Powell Library rotunda, showcases various forms of art submitted by five students who have genetic disorders such as lymphoma and cystic fibrosis.

Rushna Raza, a fourth-year molecular, cell, and developmental biology student, said she created the exhibit because of her interest in genetics and because she wanted to provide more insight into the lives of patients affected by these disorders.

“I believe the genetic and the social perspectives are both important because patients’ lives go beyond what meets the eye,” she said. “Those stories never get told unless you ask.”

The exhibit features five pieces of visual and interactive artwork created by students that aim to educate others on the invisible suffering caused by genetic disorders, Raza said. Some students chose to focus on illnesses that affect them directly, while others explored genetic diseases that have affected their loved ones. The projects also reflected the roles these heritable diseases have played throughout their families’ histories.

Chelsea Krob, a fourth-year art student who has autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, created a multimedia gallery to raise awareness of her illness.

Her project, “Through Your Journey,” tells the story of her struggle with PKD through photos and a digital recording of a conversation between Krob and her father, who died from the same illness in May.

“My project aims to look at the intergenerational effects of this disease and also my unique relationship with my dad, since we both have (PKD),” she said.

Krob’s portion of the exhibit also features a wall on which observers can add their handprints with ink. She said she was inspired by a previous project concept in which she planned to represent every day of her father’s life through thumbprints.

Raza said the handprint wall represents how everyone is unique due to small differences in their genomes. Similarly, even though human handprints have the same basic shape, small variations make them unique. Raza said this aspect of the exhibit allows students to participate in and leave their own mark on the artwork.

Krob said she hopes observers can gain a better understanding of the lives of people with PKD through her project.

“I used multiple approaches to give the viewer, wherever they’re at with life or death, an entry point into the work,” she said.

Hollie St. Claire, who graduated from UCLA in fall 2018, portrayed the impact of cystic fibrosis in her life through her carving, “Breaking Through.” Three of St. Claire’s siblings have the disease and she recently learned she is a carrier. She said she hopes to show that people with cystic fibrosis are strong and that there is hope for a cure.

To demonstrate the strength of those with cystic fibrosis, St. Claire created a painted carving that depicts an individual pushing against an arch containing strands of DNA. She said she aims to challenge the notion that individuals with cystic fibrosis are weak or fragile.

“The individual in my carving is breaking through the barriers of genetic restrictions,” she said.

Ketana Chadalavada, a fourth-year psychology student who designed the exhibit’s online graphics, said her painting “Survivor” represents her struggle with lymphoma, which she was diagnosed with last year.

She said her portrayal of a bald figure demonstrates her reclaiming ownership of her body. The lime green ribbon over the figure’s heart is an official symbol of lymphoma awareness and ties the painting to the broader lymphoma community.

“I really wanted to show the mental side to my story, including how I coped with (lymphoma) and what I learned from it,” Chadalavada said.

In addition to raising awareness for genetic disorders, Raza added she created the exhibit because she was interested in combining science and art. She said even though she does not consider herself to be an artist, she is proud to have put together a project that allows students to tell their personal stories through art.

“I wanted this project to be a chance for students to share that intimate part of their history through an artistic platform,” she said.

Julián Castro visits UCLA to speak with students about his 2020 presidential run

A candidate for the 2020 presidential election explained his position on various policies, including health care, education and foreign affairs on campus Monday.

Julián Castro, former mayor of San Antonio and former United States secretary of housing and urban development under former President Barack Obama, spoke to a Chicana and Chicano studies class about his positions on specific policies, his family background and his qualifications.

Matt Barreto, professor of political science and Chicana and Chicano studies, invited Castro to his class, and said it was a great opportunity for students to meet a politician and learn about his policies.

“It was a chance to ask him questions about his policies, where he stands on the issues, so hopefully we can all be more informed voters,” Barreto said. “Hopefully all these students will go out and vote for whichever candidate they think is best.”

Castro launched his campaign for the Democrat nomination Jan. 12 in his hometown of San Antonio.

Castro said he is running for president because he wants to ensure that every person in the U.S. has the same opportunities he was granted.

“I want to ensure in the years to come that no matter who you are, what you look like or where you come from, you can reach your dreams too,” Castro said.

Darnell Hunt, dean of the division of social sciences, introduced Castro on behalf of the administration and explained how UCLA students have unique educational opportunities due to the diversity of Los Angeles.

“We are blessed to be in one of the most culturally diverse places in the world, Los Angeles. LA is a portal to the rest of the world,” Hunt said. “Take advantage of its opportunities.”

Castro said he has pledged to visit all 50 states during his campaign and will not accept any money from corporate political action committees or federal lobbyists, as most other candidates have similarly stated.

With regards to education, he added he wants to increase pay for teachers, reduce class sizes, and make pre-K and higher education universal.

“Oftentimes we are ready to invest in things, such as roads, airports and bridges, but we need to invest in people,” Castro said. “I believe we need to make pre-K universal in the entire United States so that every child can get off to the same strong start.”

Castro also addressed his position on minimum wage, which he said he thinks should be raised so people can afford basic necessities.

“I believe that if we’re going to be the most prosperous nation on earth, it should be prosperous for everybody,” Castro said. “We need to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour so that people don’t have to work two or three jobs to pay their rent or put food on the table.”

He also said he hopes to pass comprehensive immigration reform and make immigration enforcement practices more humane.

“We have to fix the system for people seeking asylum or refugee status or (who) are fleeing countries that have experienced natural disasters or people who built lives here for 10, 20 or 30 years and are every bit American,” Castro said.

Barreto said he thinks Castro’s stances on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and immigration reform will become some of the focal points of his campaign.

“Those seemed to be the ones that got the largest reaction from the audience and those are the ones that I think all the candidates will be taking a side on,” Barreto said.

Maya Hernandez, a first-year psychology student, said she will continue to follow Castro’s campaign up until the primary elections in June.

“I am actually inspired by him not just because he is a Latino, but because he is willing to do so much for the community,” Hernandez said, “Especially in light of the Trump administration, what he says is an important reversal from the current policies.”

Jennifer Perez, a fourth-year environmental science student, said she is excited to see increased Latino representation in politics but thinks people should be wary of many politicians’ lack of transparency.

“We have to be aware of what positions they are taking and where they stand on policies that directly affect the livelihood of our communities,” Perez said. “It is important that they are more specific on their issues and not necessarily just giving us a bunch of cliches and platitudes to placate us.”

Castro said he is running for president because he believes the country needs a new leader who represents the public’s interests.

“We need new energy and new leadership. And, I believe in the 21st century, this country needs to lead and be the smartest, healthiest and most prosperous nation,” Castro said.

UCLA wants to halve global depression by 2050. It should start with its students.

What happens when visionaries in science and scholarship unite with the community to solve one giant global problem?

Apparently, a few vague promises touted as solutions.

UCLA has a set of programs called Grand Challenges, which exist as a long-term set of projects involving faculty and students to tackle world problems ranging from sustainability to the nation’s mental health epidemic. One of the more emphasized challenges, the Depression Grand Challenge, promises to cut instances of depression in half by 2050.

The DGC’s current answer to cutting depression in half is putting donations toward newly researched ideas and a few electronic surveys and online therapy programs. However, these end up acting more as a means of getting data for the long-term research study. Peer-to-peer and interpersonal guidance programs are still lacking.

This is all happening while UCLA has a raging mental health crisis on campus.

It’s common knowledge that depression and other mental health issues create an undeniable crisis that the Counseling and Psychological Services center and outsourced counseling services cannot tackle alone. The DGC focuses on understanding depression from a multitude of factors, and treating it using that knowledge. However, to be able to reduce instances of depression by half in 30 years’ time, the program needs to be able to offer more than a research study – especially when numerous students on campus need support with their mental health.

In order to truly begin cutting down cases of depression, the DGC needs to develop and publicize more programs directly involving students, centered on peer guidance and others like it.

The DGC offers students the Screening and Treatment for Anxiety and Depression Program, which uses an online questionnaire and mental health tracker to diagnose and treat symptoms of depression. Those who take the survey get “personalized feedback” in the form of points on a scale, and a laundry list of mental health contacts, including CAPS, the Anxiety and Depression Research Center and the UCLA Healthy Campus Initiative.

The mental health tracker is one of the most advertised aspects of the program, from incentives of gift cards to a grand prize raffle. But the feedback users get aren’t specific to their life circumstances. The DGC is able to diagnose depressive symptoms, but can’t provide help for its users who need more than a mood gauge.

Jamie Kennerk, a fourth-year political science student and Undergraduate Students Association Council external vice president, said surveys regarding mental health can be hit or miss.

“It depends how the survey is set up,” Kennerk said. “It’s a good concept, but I’m a bit skeptical as to just how effective they can be, since sometimes the questions themselves can be potential triggers for past experiences.”

Following the STAND program, students participating in the DGC are enrolled in a six-week internet cognitive behavioral therapy program, which tracks phone usage and mood behavior.

But this treatment is not a truly personalized resource, especially when the online cognitive behavioral therapy program itself acts like another health class. It focuses on short quizzes and reading lessons each week, tackling issues ranging from recognizing your thoughts to confronting your fears. Without having the physical empathy and encouragement a peer or counselor can provide, it’s too reminiscent of a simple self-help class instead of a treatment plan.

But the DGC has promising elements. The STAND program is paired with the Resilience Peer Network, which rigorously trains students to become accredited peer counselors who listen and guide students through mental health needs.

Nelson Freimer, the director of the DGC, said the program acts as a way to involve students and their peers as “coaches” through many of the steps of the college experience that can be difficult.

“Many people benefit a lot from senior students who have gone through similar experiences and can help guide them,” Freimer said.

But an underutilized program is not going to be very effective for anyone, especially if it doesn’t have a chance to be so without more developments and opportunities like it. RPN isn’t spoken in the same vein as other mental health resources, and you probably won’t find much about it on the DGC web page.

“I haven’t heard of it before,” Kennerk said.

Depression can make college and life much harder than it should ever be. With loneliness and mental health struggles on the rise, it’s important to be there for fellow students each step of the way. The DGC was created to address this enormous problem, and it can’t hope to do so without instituting programs that provide Bruins with some form of mental health care.

Of course the DGC has a lofty goal that requires numerous studies and great amounts of data and experimentation. However it shouldn’t only benefit Bruins after 2050. It’s meant to be an innovative program that provides all Bruins with new forms of treatment and support as they are developed.

The DGC can do a lot to make UCLA’s fight for better mental health care more effective. But it can do more by making an immediate difference on campus.

After all, it is supposed to be more than just a well-funded research project.

Op-ed: The UC’s Mauna Kea telescope project infringes upon a sacred indigenous site

This post was updated March 10 at 11:50 a.m.

Hawaii is often thought of as everyone’s getaway paradise for its beautiful sandy beaches, abundant rainforests and rich culture. Like the massive waves that meet the shoreline each day, a connection is always present between the beauty of the things we see before us and the underlying factors that aren’t always acknowledged.

Hawaii and the dark past forced upon its people continue to collide to this day.

Kānaka Maoli, the indigenous people of Hawaii, have been in combat with racial structures that insist on overshadowing issues relevant to the community. The United States has a history of violating cultural patrimony, and this time, it hit close to home. The University of California is spearheading the Thirty Meter Telescope project on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, a sacred site to Kānaka Maoli. Construction of the telescope on the island was prompted by the mountain’s high elevation, convenient for space observation.

TMT scientists justify the construction of the telescope on indigenous land by promising to donate $1,000,000 a year for the education of “Hawaii Island students.” Not only does this term convolute the identity of Native Hawaiians, it also justifies the construction of the telescope under the guise that it’s for the betterment of the indigenous population.

Conflating Kānaka Maoli with others currently occupying indigenous land and saying that they’re all Hawaiian leads to the erasure of indigenous people. The board of TMT went a step further by establishing the Akamai Workforce Initiative internship program, purposed to increase involvement of Native Hawaiians in the STEM field.

The reality of the situation, however, is that only one-fourth of those participating in the internship are of Native Hawaiian descent. The board of TMT has made these, and many related efforts over the past five years leading to the approval of this final telescope, irrespective of how it is taking away one of the few cultural patrimonies passed down through generations of Kānaka Maoli.

The board of TMT has made these and other related efforts to distract from the fact that they are taking away from Kānaka Maoli one of the few cultural patrimonies they have passed down through generations.

Sacred sites like Mauna Kea embody cultural values much larger and more complex than any scientific endeavor can account for. For centuries, before the intervention of colonial forces, Kānaka Maoli have inhabited Hawaii, and now, they are an extension of it. At the core of Kānaka Maoli values is the notion of “malama ka aina,” a message which transcends from Hawaii to each of the Pacific Islands: “If you take care of the land, the land will take care of you.”

Indigenous landmarks like Mauna Kea are the birthplace of culture, and serve in native communities to connect past generations with future generations. Mauna Kea is a spiritual site. It is a home. Scientists, tourists and nonnatives alike are all visitors on that land.

These connections between Kānaka Maoli and their land have been continuously disrupted since Queen Liliʻuokalani was overthrown in the 1890s and the U.S. illegally annexed Hawaii. Scientists believe they can diminish thousands of years worth of indigeneity on this land because they can benefit from the convenience of its location.

But that land cannot simply be replaced.

All nine UC campuses with undergraduates are built on land from Native Americans, giving the UC the title of a “land-grant institution.” However, the grant to build the telescope on Mauna Kea was passed by the Hawaii Supreme Court, consisting of five justices who are not of native descent – Mauna Kea was not granted to the UC system by Native Hawaiians.

This exchange is just one example of the colonial structures that dismiss the concerns of indigenous folk and belittle their humanity. By removing indigenous voices from the narrative, we cannot hope to reconcile centuries of violence, forced assimilation and oppression. The intentions of TMT and the Akamai internship do not align with the issues currently pressing Kānaka Maoli. Kānaka Maoli make up only about 10 percent of Hawaii’s population, but more than 42 percent of Hawaii’s homeless population. These are the factors we must consider when asking the central question of TMT: At what cost?

The UC system is complicit in violating the rights of Native Hawaiians and must be held accountable. Let this be a stepping stone toward reconciliation. Let the power dynamic shift toward returning land rights to indigenous groups.

Science has always seemed to offer respite, in its discoveries of the galaxies beyond our own to the bonds we find in our own DNA. It is prided for attaining knowledge for the benefit of mankind.

Mauna Kea is not a protest of science; it is a fight against the legacy of colonialism that permeates Hawaii’s roots and the founding of the STEM field. The UC should recognize that and divest from TMT.

Satele is a first-year human biology and society student and a member of the Pacific Islands’ Student Association.