New study offers clues to how early humans evaded immunodeficiency viruses
For hundreds of thousands of years, monkeys and apes have been plagued by simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which still devastates primate groups in Africa. James Hurley and his research team have now discovered how a long-ago human mutation interfered with SIV infection, a finding that could provide clues for the development of new therapies to thwart HIV and similar viral infections. More >
Doudna awarded prize for helping build a better, more harmonious world
Structural biologist and biochemist Jennifer Doudna has been honored with the 2019 Welfare Betterment Prize, a relatively new Hong Kong-based prize, for her pioneering discovery of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing. Founded in 2015 by Dr. Lui Che-woo, the international award is given for advancing world civilization and inspiring people to build a more harmonious world. More >
Arash Komeili Named Bakar Fellow
Professor Arash Komeili has joined the ranks of the Bakar Fellows, a program that provides five years of funding for faculty whose STEM innovations can become commercial products that stimulate California’s economy. Komeili’s lab uses a combination of cell biological, genetic, and biochemical approaches to understand the genesis and function of magnetosomes, miniature iron-based magnets synthesized by some bacteria for use as a compass. As a Bakar Fellow, Komeili will use these bacteria to engineer microorganisms capable of biomining important metals. More >
Wenjun Zhang Receives Presidential Early Career Award
Wenjun Zhang has been awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on scientists and engineers in the early stages of their careers. Zhang, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and the Charles Wilke Professor in Chemical Engineering, explores the microbial synthesis of molecules of importance to public health and bioenergy. More >
Scientists Chart Course Toward a New World of Synthetic Biology
Genetically engineered trees that provide fire-resistant lumber for homes. Modified organs that won’t be rejected. Synthetic microbes that monitor your gut to detect invading disease organisms and kill them before you get sick. These are just some of the exciting advances likely to emerge from the 20-year-old field of engineering biology, or synthetic biology, which is now mature enough to provide solutions to a range of societal problems, according to a new roadmap released by the Engineering Biology Research Consortium, a public-private partnership partially funded by the NSF and UC Berkeley. More >
GlaxoSmithKline Taps UC’s CRISPR Expertise to Speed Drug Discovery
The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced a five-year collaboration with UC Berkeley and UCSF to establish a laboratory where state-of-the-art CRISPR techniques will be used to explore how gene mutations cause disease, potentially yielding new technologies to accelerate the discovery of new medicines. The new Laboratory for Genomics Research (LGR) is the brainchild of Jennifer Doudna, a co-inventor of CRISPR technology; Jonathan Weissman, a UCSF pioneer of CRISPR screening technology; and Hal Barron, Chief Scientific Officer and President for R&D at GSK. More >
