March 21, 2024
At its most basic, chemistry is a lot like working with building blocks – but the materials are atoms and molecules. COFs – or covalent organic frameworks, a new class of porous crystals – are a great example of a material that behaves like a molecular Lego set, where individual building blocks are connected through…
March 14, 2024
With animal-free dairy products and convincing vegetarian meat substitutes already on the market, it’s easy to see how biotechnology can change the food industry. Advances in genetic engineering are allowing us to harness microorganisms to produce cruelty-free products that are healthy for consumers and healthier for the environment. One of the most promising sources of…
March 12, 2024
Five UC Berkeley faculty members have been awarded the 2024 Bakar Prize, which is designed to give a boost to campus innovators as they translate their discoveries into real-world solutions. This year’s winners are trying to engineer probiotics to treat skin disease, improve treatments for heavy metal contamination, design ultra-compact lasers and spintronic computer memory…
March 11, 2024
Iain Clark is an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering. The Clark lab’s research combines methods from multiple disciplines—molecular biology, microfluidics, engineering, and bioinformatics—to develop new single-cell genomics tools. The lab’s current work is focused on understanding how HIV evades the immune system and elucidating cellular interactions that control neurologic diseases. QB3-Berkeley: What’s an exciting…
February 27, 2024
From a professor whose passion lights the spark of discovery to research that shines new light on the world’s challenges, the collective glow of the Cal community has illuminated paths for thousands of students and faculty, fueling innovation and uplifting communities near and far. This 10th Big Give, we look back on the gifts that…
February 23, 2024
The recent approval of a CRISPR-Cas9 therapy for sickle cell disease demonstrates that gene editing tools can do a superb job knocking out genes to cure hereditary disease. But it’s still not possible to insert whole genes into the human genome to substitute for defective or deleterious genes. A new technique that employs a retrotransposon…
February 16, 2024
On January 22, 2024, Chancellor Carol Christ hosted a reception at University House honoring 2023 Prytanean Faculty Enrichment Award recipient Samantha Lewis, Assistant Professor of Cell Biology, Development and Physiology. Lewis received the Prytanean Faculty Enrichment Award and $35,000 grant in recognition of outstanding scholarship, teaching, mentoring, and service to UC Berkeley. Her research focusing…
February 15, 2024
UC Berkeley research suggests that constant stress triggered by clumping proteins is killing brain cells. Protein clumps, also known as aggregates, are thought to lead to cell death and dementia. New research suggests that such clumps may not cause brain cell death directly, but rather throw the cell’s response to stress off balance so that…