Hand getting water from faucet.

Testing the waters

Worldwide, more than 500,000 children under age five die each year from gastrointestinal bacterial infections, largely in communities lacking safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure. To address this public health threat, scientists need to better understand how these pathogens spread. Now, a team led by Amy Pickering, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, has discovered…

A cardiac microphysiological system under fluorescent lighting with fluidic tubing.

Heart-on-a-chip may lead to new treatments for heart failure

Model helps identify nanoparticles that can deliver mRNA directly into heart muscle cells Cardiovascular disease continues to be the leading cause of death worldwide. But advances in heart-failure therapeutics have stalled, largely due to the difficulty of delivering treatments at the cellular level. Now, a UC Berkeley-led team of researchers may have solved this delivery…

Looking up at the roof over the entrance of Li Ka Shing Center.

Andrew Dillin on CURED, UC Berkeley’s new approach to advance medicine and global health

Andrew Dillin is a professor of immunology and molecular medicine in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology (MCB). He would be in the Department of Neuroscience, too, if he wasn’t so dang busy. In addition to his regular teaching and research duties, Dillin is developing the Division of Immunology and Molecular Medicine’s new curriculum…

black and white image of tangled strands of pearl-like white blobs

Can the ‘good’ bacteria in your mouth act as probiotic cavity fighters?

UC Berkeley’s Wenjun Zhang is trying to understand how oral bacteria make biofilms, aka plaque, so she can distinguish the good from the bad — and tip the balance to prevent cavities. If Wenjun Zhang has her way, no one will ever have to brush or floss again. Zhang, a UC Berkeley professor of chemical…

Two prairie voles next to each other.

Is the ‘love hormone,’ oxytocin, also the ‘friendship hormone’?

A UC Berkeley study found that social prairie voles lacking the receptor for oxytocin are slow to form friendships and less aggressive toward unfamiliar peers. This suggests a role for oxytocin in both the “approach” and “avoid” sides of maintaining friendships. A new UC Berkeley study shows that the so-called love hormone, oxytocin, is also…

An illustration of a DNA strand surrounded by faces.

Berkeley researchers use genomics to unravel India’s past

India is the most populous country in the world, home to 1.5 billion people and more than 5,000 anthropologically well-defined ethno-linguistic and religious groups. However, Indian genomes have been largely left out of the conversation of human history. Researchers at UC Berkeley in Priya Moorjani’s lab were interested in examining questions related to India’s genomic…

Scientists complete the most thorough analysis yet of India’s genetic diversity

India is one of the most diverse countries in the world. A new analysis of Indian genomes shows an ancient admixture of genes from Neanderthals and Denisovans, and more recent mingling of genes from Iranian farmers, Central Asian steppe pastoralists and hunter-gatherers from South Asia. Photo courtesy of unsplash With around 5,000 different ethno-linguistic and…