October 01, 2026
Researchers engineer charge-switching lipid nanoparticles that could lead to new mRNA-based therapeutics. For many of us, getting a COVID-19 shot was our first encounter with lipid nanoparticles. These tiny fat droplets can safely carry messenger RNA (mRNA) and other therapeutics into our cells. But the same property that makes them great delivery vehicles — their…
October 01, 2026
The legend of the fountain of youth has captivated people for centuries, with the promise that its rejuvenating waters can turn someone young again. Nature has its own version of this myth, as rejuvenation is a part of every organism’s life cycle. Think about it like this: babies are always born young, regardless of the…
September 24, 2026
Margaux Pinney is a biochemist whose lab utilizes advanced microfluidic technologies to analyze thousands of protein variants simultaneously — measuring catalytic rates, substrate affinities, and inhibitor sensitivities with unprecedented scale and precision. From understanding how mutations drive drug resistance and disease to discovering the general principles of protein evolution, the Pinney lab seeks to accelerate…
September 23, 2026
Tuberous sclerosis complex, a leading genetic cause of early-onset epilepsy, is typically resistant to drugs, requiring surgical removal of brain lesions. A new study pinpoints a cause and potential new therapies. Helen Bateup/UC Berkeley In Helen Bateup’s UC Berkeley lab, graduate students and postdocs painstakingly nurture tiny balls of human brain cells for months and…
September 17, 2026
IGI researchers discover an ancient progenitor of CRISPR using a combination of AI tools and human ingenuity to solve a genomic mystery. When scientists first started to decode the language of the genome, the intuitive simplicity made the discovery feel especially profound. The language of our cells works much like our own languages. The code is…
September 17, 2026
UC Berkeley researchers developed ProteinGuide, a method that uses experimental data to guide existing protein generative models toward desired properties without retraining them. Perhaps you have tried recreating a pasta dish from your favorite Italian restaurant. You know the basic ingredients, and you may even have found and tested several recipes online. But something is…
September 10, 2026
The International Balzan Foundation recognized Rasmus Nielsen, a professor of statistics and integrative biology at UC Berkeley, with its 2026 Balzan Prize for Molecular Evolution. Nielsen shared the award with University College London’s Ziheng Yang for their pioneering and complementary contributions that have revealed how natural selection shapes genes and populations. The two have also developed…
September 09, 2026
UC Berkeley researchers have created a new genomic language model, called GPN-Star, that excels at spotting genetic variants that impact human health. More than two decades after scientists first sequenced the entire human genome — all 3 billion “letters,” or base pairs, of DNA code — the meaning of much of this code remains a mystery. While…