When the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe, researchers were determined to discover how to help people fight off infections. In February 2020, InnerScience Research Fund partnered with UC San Diego to determine if meditation could protect against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Over 600,000 people died of cancer in 2021, while 1.9 million new diagnoses were made. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. Though progress has been made in developing novel therapeutics, such as immunotherapy and precision medicine, to battle a number of unique cancers, these do not produce consistently effective results in every case and have potentially significant side effects that limit the patient’s quality of life.
As we move into the final quarter of the year, it is a time to reflect on our year of research, and what we have to look forward to in the future. As always, my laboratory at UCSD is so grateful for your support. We could not have done the amazing research this past year without you and could not look boldly ahead to transform the role of meditation in healthcare without your continued support for our future research projects;
Summer is an amazing time on the UCSD campus. The pace slows a bit as the campus empties of students heading off to summer vacation, but it is also a time when many students from different places join the laboratory for summer research opportunities. This summer we had around ten students rotate through the laboratory from local high schools, various universities across the country, and several visiting scholars from different countries.
In San Diego we launched two large studies, one standalone and the other encompassing three related investigations. The standalone study, named IMAGINE (Integrating MAGnetic Imaging with rich pheNotypE) will be the first study using Dr. Joe Dispenza’s meditations to integrate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with qEEG, biometrics, blood work, and health surveys.
