Richard Karp is the founding director of the new Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at UC Berkeley. The new research institute was founded by a $60 million award from the Simons Foundation, and will establish the campus as the worldwide center for theoretical computer science. The institute will act as a hub where top computer theorists and researchers from around the globe will converge to explore the mathematical foundations of computer science and extend them to tackle challenges in fields as diverse as mathematics, health care, climate modeling, astrophysics, genetics, economics and business. Read more »

James Berger has been elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies and a leading center for independent policy research. The Academy was founded during the American Revolution by John Adams, James Bowdoin and John Hancock with the purpose of providing a forum for a select group of scholars, members of the learned professions, and government and business leaders to work together on behalf of the democratic interests of the republic. Read more »

Susan Marqusee has been awarded the William C. Rose Award by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in recognition of her extensive thermodynamic and kinetic studies using hydrogen-exchange, nuclear magnetic resonance, and single-molecule methods to study protein structure and behavior at increasingly sharper resolution. “>Read more »

Michael Jordan has been elected as a 2012 Fellow of the of the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) for his contributions to machine learning, in particular variational approaches to statistical inference. The SIAM Fellows Program honors SIAM members who are recognized by their peers as distinguished for their contributions to the discipline.

Bernd Sturmfels has been awarded the Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award in recognition of his outstanding work as a graduadte mentor. Read more »

Lior Pachter has been awarded the inaugural Raymond and Beverly Sackler Chair in Computational Biology. The Chair was established to support the work of an eminent UC Berkeley faculty member whose research interests build on and enhance new connections between biology and the engineering and/or physical sciences. The Chair is part of the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Center for Biomedical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. Read more »

A study by Adam Arkin and his colleagues reveals critical genetic secrets of a bacterium that holds potential for removing toxic and radioactive waste from the environment. The researchers have created a first-of-its-kind gene map of Desulfovibrio vulgaris, which can be used to identify the genes that determine how these bacteria interact with their surrounding environment. Read more »

Tom Alber and his colleagues report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the practice of freezing protein crystals for analysis – a mainstay of biology for 40 years – erases most of the information about protein conformations, leading scientists to miss vital clues about how these molecules operate. Read more »

Professor Susan Marqusee, director of QB3-Berkeley, has been recognized as one of the 150 Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business for 2011 by the San Francisco Business Times. The annual list, which the newspaper has published for more than a decade, recognizes outstanding women professionals who make a difference in their companies, industries and communities.
The listing appears in a 56-page special publication in the Business Times April 29-May 5 issue, released Friday, April 29, 2011. Read more »

One of the most common nutritional deficiencies in the United States, folic acid deficiency has been linked to conditions as serious as spina bifida. Jasper Rine, whose research focuses on exploring human gene variation, has sequenced the genes involved in folic acid metabolism in an effort to unravel the genetic basis of this disease. His hope: that someday we may be able to prevent or treat a variety of medical conditions with something as simple as a nutritional supplement. Read more »