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 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…
September 01, 2026
Robert Thorne, PhD, has spent more than three decades studying one of the central challenges in neuroscience: how to deliver therapeutics to the brain. After years in academia, including eight years as a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Thorne moved to biotechnology and joined Denali Therapeutics, where he is now a Denali Fellow and…
August 03, 2026
The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) is proud to announce the election of 15 outstanding scientists as 2026 ASCB Fellows—a prestigious honor recognizing their exceptional contributions to cell biology and the Society. This year’s honorees include Daniel Fletcher and Roberto Zoncu, two QB3-Berkeley faculty affiliates. ASCB Fellows are selected by their peers and approved…