Neuroscientist John Ngai named director of NIH BRAIN Initiative

Professor of Neuroscience at UC Berkeley, John Ngai, has been picked by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to head its BRAIN initiative, a multibillion-dollar federal research push to develop new tools for understanding how the brain works and lead to new treatments for brain disorders.

Lab-made proteins mimic cellular gatekeepers

In a study published this week in the journal Nature, professor Ting Xu and collaborators describe the first lab-made versions of gatekeeper proteins that filter good from bad just as well as the real thing.