14 ways in which UCLA research powered progress in 2025

Across medicine, environmental studies, public policy, the social sciences and beyond, UCLA scholars in 2025 continued pushing the boundaries of research - turning discovery into real-world impact, improving patient outcomes, informing policy and tackling urgent challenges from wildfire recovery to cancer care.

The year also delivered a stark reminder of what's at stake. The suspension of federal research grants threatened the engine behind UCLA's lifesaving and life-changing work, prompting the Bruin community to speak out. Campus leaders, faculty, students and alumni made a clear, public case for how the university's research powers progress and why sustained government investment is essential to discoveries that deliver lasting benefits to society.

Even amid uncertainty, momentum continued, and the stories below capture just a fraction of how, throughout the year, UCLA researchers carried on advancing knowledge, driving innovation and serving the public good.

In October, immunologist Frederick J. "Fred" Ramsdell, who earned his doctorate in microbiology and immunology in 1987, was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his groundbreaking work on how the human immune system regulates itself to protect against autoimmune diseases. His findings are improving care for conditions like arthritis, Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis and other disorders - driving medical breakthroughs that will shape the future of human health.

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UCLA surgeons made medical history in May by performing the world's first successful human bladder transplant, a complex eight-hour surgery that could open new doors for people with severe bladder dysfunction. The procedure, completed at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, involved transplanting both a donor bladder and a kidney into a 41-year-old recipient, who had spent seven years on dialysis. The breakthrough - the result of years of research and collaboration by UCLA's Dr. Nima Nassiri and USC's Dr. Inderbir Gill - may one day offer a more normal urinary solution than existing intestinal-based reconstructions.

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In response to January's devastating Los Angeles fires, UCLA partnered with Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and other community leaders to launch an independent blue-ribbon commission that developed a comprehensive set of policy recommendations for safe, resilient and equitable post-fire recovery and rebuilding. Drawing on the world-class expertise of more than 40 UCLA scholars across disciplines - and extensive community engagement efforts spearheaded by UCLA - the commission recommended nearly 60 critical actions that policymakers should take, from restoring natural habitats and improving emergency response systems to strengthening infrastructure and preparing communities for the growing threats of climate change.

The work of scholars on the commission complemented the efforts of dozens of other UCLA faculty members in climate science, engineering, ecology, public health, urban planning, law and other areas whose work on - which continues today - is rooted in research, shaped by service and inspired by hope.

Read more about UCLA's fire-related research.

In 2025, UCLA found itself in an unprecedented battle to restore federal research funding after the U.S. government suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in grants, threatening the lifesaving and life-changing research that happens every day across campus.

UCLA mathematician Terence Tao, internet pioneer Leonard Kleinrock and psychologist Carrie Bearden joined Chancellor Julio Frenk and a chorus of campus leaders in publicly testifying not only to the ways in which UCLA research powers progress but to the dire consequences of withdrawing support, warning that the loss imperils potential breakthroughs across medicine, technology, public health, the sciences, the arts and the humanities. Alumni voices, too, including legends like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, underscored the immense impact of UCLA research, while students launched campaigns for sustained investment in research and training programs.

The collective push helped spotlight how federal backing fuels discovery and innovation, at UCLA and other research universities across the nation, and why preserving it matters - to patients, to communities and to the nation's future. The links below illustrate some of the many ways the Bruin community worked to get that message through:

For children born with a rare immune deficiency called ADA-SCID, day-to-day activities like going to school or playing with friends can lead to dangerous, life-threatening infections. If untreated, the disease can be fatal within the first two years of life. But an experimental gene therapy co-developed by UCLA's Dr. Donald Kohn has been stunningly successful in restoring immune function in kids with ADA-SCID. In October, Kohn and his colleagues reported that 59 of 62 children treated with the immunotherapy, including five treated a decade ago, remained healthy, with no serious complications.

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A UCLA study suggests that common antidepressants may have a surprising moonlighting gig: helping the immune system fight cancer. Researchers found that widely used selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, revved up cancer-killing T cells, dramatically shrinking tumors across multiple cancer types in lab and animal studies. When the antidepressants were combined with an immunotherapy called anti-PD-1, the results were even stronger, sometimes wiping tumors out entirely. Because these drugs are already FDA-approved and broadly prescribed, the findings raise the possibility that faster, more accessible cancer treatments may be hiding in medicine cabinets already.

Imagine a medicine that could help your brain heal after a stroke - without the grueling hours of physical therapy. That's the promise of a new discovery by UCLA researchers who have identified a drug candidate that successfully mimics the effects of stroke rehabilitation in mice. Dr. S. Thomas Carmichael, who chairs UCLA's Department of Neurology, and his team identified a drug called DDL-920 - developed in the UCLA lab of Dr. Varghese John - that showed remarkable results in restoring movement control in mice nearly as effectively as physical rehabilitation. If the drug proves safe and effective in humans, it could revolutionize stroke recovery - potentially making rehabilitation as simple as taking a pill.

A UCLA-led study shows why so many people shrug at climate change - and how to get their attention: When climate data is presented as slow, creeping temperature increases, people tend to tune out; but when the same information is shown in either-or binary terms - for example, whether or not a particular lake froze in winter - the impact becomes more obvious and meaningful. UCLA communications professor and cognitive psychologist Rachit Dubey found that participants who saw this kind of data perceived climate change as more serious, suggesting that reframing how we talk about warming, including linking it to lost local traditions like ice skating, can help break through public apathy and spark more engagement with the climate crisis.

Films featuring diverse casts have consistently delivered strong box-office returns domestically and worldwide, and people of color and women drove those ticket sales. Yet despite a clear audience demand for more inclusive storytelling, Hollywood studios continued to roll back representation, both in front of and behind the camera, with people of color losing ground in key roles and creators remaining overwhelmingly white and male. UCLA's Hollywood Diversity Report suggests that as studios race to combat the last few years of instability in the industry, they risk ignoring what moviegoers actually want and that they should reinvest in broader diversity to remain profitable.

New research led by UCLA scientists shows that "hydroclimate whiplash" - the rapid swings from extreme wet to extreme dry weather - is intensifying worldwide as a warming planet's atmosphere holds and moves more water, supercharging both floods and droughts and fueling cycles of boom-and-bust vegetation that boost wildfire risk. Recent California weather, which has included record rains that fed brush growth, as well as bone-dry conditions that helped drive destructive fires, offers a vivid example, and researchers say coping with these extremes will involve managing drought and flood risks together.

Life may unfold as a continuous stream, but our memories tell a different story. We don't recall the past as one long, unbroken scene but as a series of meaningful events, giving shape and coherence to our experiences. UCLA scientists and colleagues discovered that a tiny brainstem region called the locus coeruleus is what helps the brain chop continuous experience into these distinct episodes They also found that stress can disrupt this mechanism, blurring memories, as can happen in PTSD and Alzheimer's. The findings point to exciting new avenues for understanding and treating these conditions and other memory disorders.

UCLA scientists are closing in on a long sought-after goal in cancer care: off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapies that don't need to be custom-tailored for each patient. Their most recent breakthrough, a potential therapy for aggressive and treatment-resistant forms of breast cancer, uses engineered immune cells known as CAR-NKT cells that target mesothelin, a protein found on many hard-to-treat solid tumors; in preclinical studies, the therapy was found to be successful at highly killing cancer cells.

Researchers have seen similar results with the same therapy in targeting in ovarian cancer and pancreatic cancer. Ideally, they say, such treatments could be mass-produced, stored and delivered on demand, leading to expanded access and dramatically reduced costs, compared with today's personalized cell therapies.

A UCLA study found that landmark federal safety-net programs from the War on Poverty era - like Head Start, expanded food stamps, family planning services and community health centers - didn't just help families in the moment, they set children up for bigger achievements in life: better education, higher rates of employment, less reliance on public assistance and lower adult poverty. Investing in these initiatives, the researchers stress, helped boost upward mobility and improve well-being in ways that still matter today.

A sweeping study from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research showed American children's health has taken a worrying turn for the worse over the past decade-and-a-half, with kids and teens now facing higher death rates than their peers in other wealthy nations and experiencing sharp increases in chronic conditions, obesity, mental health issues and other physical and developmental challenges.

More UCLA research highlights from 2025: