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 12/8/2009 - H1N1 influenza adopted novel strategy to move from birds to humans
The H1N1 influenza virus used a new strategy to cross from birds into humans, a warning that it has more than one trick up its sleeve to jump the species barrier and become virulent. In a report in this week's early online edition of PNAS, QB3 researchers show that the swine flu virus adopted a new mutation distinct from those found in previous flu viruses. More >
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 12/4/2009 - QB3 scientists pin down shape-changing enzyme
QB3 researchers have peered into the fuzz of electrons in the structure of a human enzyme cyclophilin A and found a hidden conformation that is key to the catalytic process. The research was recently published in Nature. More >
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 12/4/2009 - UC Berkeley, UCSF consider new translational medicine degree program
Universities like UCSF may be the country’s best hope of translating technology into therapies that not only improve health but also bring spiraling health care costs down, according to a panel of experts from academia and industry who gathered recently at Mission Bay. More >
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 11/19/2009 - Atomic-level snapshot catches protein motor in action
Using a state-of-the-art protein crystallography beamline at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source, researchers led by QB3's James Berger have captured a critical action shapshot of an enzyme that is vital to the survival of all biological cells. More >
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 11/19/2009 - UC appoints Paul Alivisatos director of Berkeley Lab
The University of California Board of Regents on Nov. 19 named QB3 member Paul Alivisatos director of the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which is managed by the university. More >
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 11/16/2009 - Chromosomes dance and pair up on the nuclear membrane
Abby Dernburg and colleagues have looked at the amazingly precise choreography of chromosomes as they pair up during meiosis—the process by which cells create egg and sperm with half the normal number of chromosomes—and found a critical role played by the cytoskeleton. More >
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 11/12/2009 - Vibrations key to efficiency of green fluorescent protein
UC Berkeley chemists led by QB3 member Richard Mathies have discovered the secret to the success of a jellyfish protein whose green glow has made it the darling of biologists and the subject of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The researchers' study of green fluorescent protein and the structural changes it undergoes when it fluoresces is the cover story of the Nov. 12 issue of the journal Nature. More >
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 10/27/2009 - New $16 million center to push, pinch, and probe cancer cells & tissues
The National Cancer Institute has awarded QB3 and UC Berkeley $15.7 million over five years to allow physical scientists and engineers to open a new front in the war on cancer. Jan Liphardt will direct UC Berkeley's new Physical Sciences-Oncology Center, a QB3-initiated collaboration with UCSF, LBL, and San Francisco's Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center. More >
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 10/22/2009 - Berkeley researchers find new route to nano self-assembly
QB3 researchers at UC Berkeley have found a simple yet powerful way to induce nanoparticles to assemble themselves into complex arrays. Ting Xu and colleagues can direct nanoparticles to self-assemble into arrays of one, two and even three dimensions with no chemical modification. More >
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 10/14/2009 - UC Berkeley professor among Popular Science magazine's 'Brilliant 10'
A QB3 researcher at UC Berkeley has been pegged as an up-and-coming scientist to watch by the magazine Popular Science. The publication announced today (Thursday, Oct. 15) that Ting Xu, 35, assistant professor of materials science and engineering and of chemistry, is one of the "Brilliant 10" young researchers profiled in its November issue. More >
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 10/13/2009 - Silence of the genes
The human RISC complex, which helps determine the fate of human cells, has been imaged for the first time by UC Berkeley professors Eva Nogales and Jennifer Doudna, both of whom are members of QB3. More >
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 10/5/2009 - New technique boosts remote MRI sensitivity
Researchers led by Alex Pines, a UC Berkeley professor and QB3 member, have developed a new magnetic resonance imaging technique with the potential to detect ultralow concentrations of clinical targets such as lung cancer. More >
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 9/30/2009 - Scientists discover clues to what makes human muscle age
A study led by QB3 researcher Irina Conboy has identified critical biochemical pathways linked to the aging of human muscle. By manipulating these pathways, the researchers were able to turn back the clock on old human muscle, restoring its ability to repair and rebuild itself. More >
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 September 2009 - The immortality enzyme
The enzymes that reset cellular clocks help replenish your blood supply, renew your skin, and serve as a check against tumors. Kathleen Collins, a QB3 faculty affiliate, studies telomerases and has pinpointed their connection to human genetic diseases, revealing new methods to halt cancers. More >
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 9/21/2009 - White House nominates Arun Majumdar to head key DOE agency
The White House announced its intention to nominate UC Berkeley researcher and QB3 affiliate Arun Majumdar as the first director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
More >
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 9/16/2009 - Photoswitches shed light on burst swimming in zebrafish
Using flashes of light to control cells in the spinal cord of zebrafish, QB3 researcher Ehud Isacoff and colleagues have found that the cells trigger reflexive swimming bursts in larvae. The genetic technique highlights how scientists are now able to target specific types of cells in living animals with great precision. More >
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 8/20/2009 - New images capture cell's ribosomes at work, could aid in molecular war against disease
Jamie Cate and his team have for the first time captured elusive nanoscale movements of ribosomes at work, shedding light on how these cellular factories take in genetic instructions and amino acids to churn out proteins. The achievement could eventually lead to advances in the fight against human disease. More >
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 7/30/2009 - Gene transcribing machine takes halting, backsliding trip along the DNA
Cell's have nanoscale protein machines that perform the first step in gene expression, gliding smoothly along the DNA and transcribing it into RNA. Or so scientists thought. A new study shows that the real process is replete with long pauses and backsliding as the machine tries to negotiate the tightly compacted DNA in the nucleus. More >
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 7/21/2009 - Fluorescent imaging brought to mobile phones
The prototype CellScope developed by Daniel Fletcher and colleagues holds promise for taking clinical microscopy out of specialized laboratories and into remote field settings for disease screening and diagnoses. More >
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 7/9/2009 - Early-career scientist gets White House honor
Sanjay Kumar, a UC Berkeley bioengineer, is one of 100 researchers to receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. His research focuses on cellular mechanics and biomaterials, including how a cell's cytoskeleton governs its structure and senses. More >
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 7/6/2009 - Spontaneous assembly: a new look at how proteins assemble and organize themselves into complex patterns
A team of researchers led by Jan Liphardt has revealed how thousands of bacterial membrane proteins are able to assemble into clusters that direct cell movement to select chemicals in their environment.
More >
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 7/2/2009 - Green Corridor Partnership picks up steam as UC, LBNL drive innovation
QB3-affiliated researchers and other members of a public-private East Bay consortium designed to solve environmental challenges while creating jobs gathered in Oakland June 26 for the partnership's second annual summit. More >
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 6/11/2009 - Extreme makeover chemistry style
Jonathan Ellman and his colleagues have discovered a mild and relatively inexpensive procedure for removing oxygen from biomass. This procedure, if it can be effectively industrialized, could allow many of today’s petrochemical products, including plastics, to instead be made from biomass. More >
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 6/1/2009 - Robert Tjian elected to American Philosophical Society
Robert Tjian has been elected to the American Philosophical Society, the nation's oldest learned society comprised of nearly 1,000 eminent scholars from a broad range of disciplines. More >
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 5/20/2009 - Keasling wins BIO’s first Biotech Humanitarian Award
Jay Keasling has been selected by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) to receive its first annual Biotech Humanitarian Award. Keasling was recognized for his use of synthetic biology techniques to develop a simple and much less expensive means of making artemisinin, today’s most powerful anti-malaria drug. More >
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 April 2009 - AAAS elects new Fellows
The American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS) elected two QB3 faculty affiliates as fellows of one of the nation’s top honorary societies. With the addition of David Agard, UC San Francisco professor of biochemistry and biophysics, and Matthew Tirrell, dean of engineering at UC Santa Barbara and incoming chair of UC Berkeley’s bioengineering department, QB3 now boasts 25 AAAS fellows. More >
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 4/23/2009 - Marqusee named Interim Director of QB3-Berkeley
Susan Marqusee has been appointed Interim Director of QB3 at Berkeley, assuming the post recently vacated by Graham Fleming, who was named Vice Chancellor for Research. Protein folding expert Marqusee has served as QB3-Berkeley Associate Director since 2000. A search for a new permanent director for QB3-Berkeley is under way. More >
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 April 2009 - Habitat for human stem cells
Scientists hope someday to be able to transplant stem cells into the body to repair injured nerve cells, regenerate diseased organs, and replace defective tissues. But stem cells are also prima donnas, tricky to keep alive in the lab and difficult to control. David Schaffer is developing ways to mimic their natural habitats and cultivate stem cells for tomorrow's medical therapies. More >
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 April 2009 - Francis wins highest Berkeley honor for teaching
Associate Professor of Chemistry Matthew Francis has been selected as a recipient of the UC Berkeley 2009 Distinguished Teaching Award. The Award is the highest honor for teaching excellence presented by the Berkeley campus. More >
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 4/1/2009 - Sea mollusks taste their memories to build shells
Mollusks add daily to the margins of their shells to produce intricate patterns prized by beachcombers. Though this seems complex, the process can actually be explained by a simple network of nerve cells that taste yesterday's shell layer to build today's, according to Alistair Boettiger and QB3 faculty affiliate George Oster. To prove it they have created a computer model that re-creates the patterns seen in seashells. More >
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 4/1/2009 - Graham Fleming named
UC Berkeley vice chancellor for research
Graham Fleming, the Melvin Calvin Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, former deputy director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and QB3-Berkeley founding director, has been appointed UC Berkeley's vice chancellor for research. More >
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 3/5/2009 - Assembling cells into artificial 3-D tissues, like tiny glands
Carolyn Bertozzi and her colleague Zev Gartner have developed a way to assemble cells into 3-D microtissues and even tiny glands, much like snapping together toy building blocks to make a simple machine. Such microtissues could serve as niches for studying how cells work together, or be assembled into larger structures such as artificial, implantable organs. More >
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2/23/2009 - Graham Fleming to receive Joel Hildebrand Award
QB3-UC Berkeley director Graham Fleming, who happens to work in Hildebrand Hall, will receive the Joel Hildebrand Award from the American Chemical Society at the group's annual meeting later this month. The award is for his work in the theoretical and experimental chemistry of liquids. More >
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 2/17/2009 - Cheaper materials could be key to low-cost solar cells
Unconventional solar cell materials that are as abundant but much less costly than silicon and other semiconductors in use today could substantially reduce the cost of solar photovoltaics, according to a new UC Berkeley and LBNL study. More >
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 2/17/2009 - "Evolved" virus may improve gene therapy for cystic fibrosis
Chemical engineer David Schaffer has developed a technique to force viruses to evolve as better gene therapy carriers, and tests at the University of Iowa show that the virus can completely cure cystic fibrosis in tissue culture. More >
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 1/28/2009 - Scientists publish complete genetic blueprint of key biofuels crop
Sorghum is a major feed grain and, after corn, the most-used feedstock for ethanol. In this week's Nature, Dan Rokhsar joins others in reporting the complete sequence of its genome. The sequence and that of rice could help scientists redesign grasses for better biofuels. More >
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 1/28/2009 - Improved method for comparing genomes as well as written text
When comparing the genomes of different organisms to create an evolutionary tree, scientists have been restricted to using a few dozen genes common to all of them. No longer. A UC Berkeley chemist and his colleagues have discovered a way to compare entire genomes across a range of sizes. The method also works for comparing written texts. More >
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 1/23/2009 - UC appoints Paul Alivisatos interim director of Berkeley Lab
University of California President Mark G. Yudof on Thursday appointed Paul Alivisatos interim director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Alivisatos will replace Steve Chu, who was sworn in as U.S. Secretary of Energy on Jan. 21. More >
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