Research News – Page 3

Researchers demonstrate heat-induced pyroelectricity in viruses

September 25, 2023

Viruses are often associated with disease, but many viruses are benign and even helpful, like bacteriophages that eat harmful, antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Now, Berkeley researchers have reported that engineered viruses also can generate electricity when exposed to heat, a finding that may pave the way for next-generation biosensors and diagnostic tools. As reported in the journal Advanced Materials, researchers…

Iain Clark selected as Innovation Investigator by Arc Institute

September 20, 2023

Iain Clark, assistant professor of bioengineering, was named an Innovation Investigator by the Arc Institute, a scientific research organization pioneering new models for scientific discovery and translation. As a member of the inaugural Innovation Investigators program, Clark will receive $1 million over five years to pursue “curiosity-driven, ambitious research.” Clark was among nine researchers selected from…

Collage of biotal, a hand holding a plant, and a researcher holding up a recyclable plastic.

Making Renewable, Infinitely Recyclable Plastics Using Bacteria

August 03, 2023

Plastic waste is a problem. Most plastics can’t be recycled, and many use finite, polluting petrochemicals as the basic ingredients. But that’s changing. In a study published today in Nature Sustainability, researchers successfully engineered microbes to make biological alternatives for the starting ingredients in an infinitely recyclable plastic known as poly(diketoenamine), or PDK. The finding comes…

Blue, pink and magenta figures illustrating the ribosome translation of mRNA into protein.

Retooling the translation machine could expand the chemical repertoire of cells

June 13, 2023

Synthetic biologists have become increasingly creative in engineering yeast or bacteria to churn out useful chemicals — from fuels to fabrics and drugs — beyond the normal repertoire of microbes. But a multi-university group of chemists has a more ambitious goal: to retool the cell’s polypeptide manufacturing plants — the ribosomes that spin amino acids…

Researchers reveal the ‘hidden’ costs of drinkable water

May 26, 2023

Drinking water treatment technologies are typically evaluated for contaminant removal efficiency, capital costs and health impacts, but these narrow metrics do not fully capture why more than 2 billion people worldwide lack safe drinking water. To tackle this problem, researchers at UC Berkeley argue for an assessment of the “hidden” costs of these technologies, including…

A black field with a ctenophore on the left side and a marine sponge on the right side with the word Versus in the middle.

What did the earliest animals look like?

May 18, 2023

For more than a century, biologists have wondered what the earliest animals were like when they first arose in the ancient oceans over half a billion years ago. Searching among today’s most primitive-looking animals for the earliest branch of the animal tree of life, scientists gradually narrowed the possibilities down to two groups: sponges, which…

Collage of green grass overlaid on the buildings of a biomanufacturing facility.

Tiny Microbes Could Brew Big Benefits for Green Biomanufacturing

May 09, 2023

A research team led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley has engineered bacteria to produce new-to-nature carbon products that could provide a powerful route to sustainable biochemicals. The advance – which was recently announced in the journal Nature – uses bacteria to combine natural enzymatic reactions with a new-to-nature reaction called the “carbene…

IGI’s ‘Audacious’ New Frontier for CRISPR: Editing Microbiomes for Climate and Health

April 17, 2023

$70M funding will catalyze a bold new initiative led by Jennifer Doudna and Jill Banfield to apply precision genome editing to microbial communities. The Audacious Project, an initiative housed at TED, encourages the world’s greatest changemakers to dream bigger. A new initiative led by Jennifer Doudna and Jill Banfield at the Innovative Genomics Institute and announced today at…

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