Monthly Memo of Announcements – May 24, 2018

Breakthrough for SF State kinesiologists studying metabolic protein

ASan Francisco State University researchers have discovered a new method for testing levels of a tiny but hugely important protein — “AMPK” — in human muscle cells. “AMPK is the gas gauge that tells each cell in your body if your fuel is too low. We call it the energy sensor of the cell,” said Assistant Professor of Kinesiology Jimmy Bagley.

Muscles make up 30 to 40 percent of our bodies and are the largest users of sugar and fat for energy. But if people have too much stored fuel — if they are obese or not exercising, for example — AMPK is not activated and the body doesn’t regulate blood sugar the way it should. Bagley and his colleagues at the Center for Sport Performance at CSU Fullerton are the first to test the new method on human muscle cells. Their innovative technique was just published in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

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Ripple co-founder says cryptocurrency tech will revolutionize business

Any list of the top news stories from 2017 will include an article about Bitcoin’s wild rise and fall. The currency’s value per unit soared from $900 in the beginning of the year to nearly $20,000 in December, according to digital currency news site CoinDesk. Just a few days later, the price dropped about 30 percent. Despite such wild swings, alumnus Chris Larsen (B.S. ’84), cofounder of enterprise blockchain company Ripple, predicts that new cryptocurrency technology will radically transform global business, and he said so in a recent classroom visit to his alma mater.

Larsen spoke to students during an April 9 event in Assistant Professor Shengle Lin’s “Alternative Investment” class. As Larsen sees it, the day-to-day trading of virtual currency isn’t as interesting as how blockchain technology is paving the way for something called “the internet of value”: a system of near-instantaneous exchange that would allow money to be sent online as quickly and easily as an email or a phone call. 

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