Headshot of Miki Yamamoto on a blue background with the QB3-Berkeley logo in the bottom right corner.

Professional in Residence interview with Miki Yamamoto: Finding a Path in Regulatory Affairs

Miki Yamamoto, PhD, is the vice president and head of regulatory affairs at Arrivent Biopharma. Yamamoto is joining the QB3-Berkeley Professionals in Residence (PIR) program on February 9th 2023. UC Berkeley and LBL trainees may register for Yamamoto’s events here. Yamamoto spoke with graduate student Anneliese Gest about her journey in regulatory affairs. Anneliese Gest:…

A student in a mask stands in front of a scientific poster.

My Experience as a QB3-Berkeley Biotech Intern at InterVenn Biosciences

QB3-Berkeley’s Summer Undergraduate Biotech Internship program is now open. For 2023 placements at Bay Area biotech companies, UC Berkeley undergraduates must apply by January 30th. Information and application form are on the internship program’s page.  During the summer of 2022, I had the opportunity to be a QB3-Berkeley Undergraduate Biotech intern at InterVenn Biosciences, located…

A grid of six black-and-white headshots with the text "Next Generation Leaders 2022" along the lefthand side of the graphic.

Karthik Shekhar named Allen Institute Next Generation Leader

The Allen Institute today announced six new Next Generation Leaders (NGL), members of a unique neuroscience advisory panel made up of early-career researchers who will help advise research efforts at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the MindScope Program, and the Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics. The Next Generation Leaders program is now in its ninth year.…

An illustration of an hourglass featuring parts of a phage.

How to Edit the Genes of Nature’s Master Manipulators

CRISPR, the Nobel Prize-winning gene editing technology, is poised to have a profound impact on the fields of microbiology and medicine yet again. A team led by CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna and her longtime collaborator Jill Banfield has developed a clever tool to edit the genomes of bacteria-infecting viruses called bacteriophages using a rare form…

Kevin Healy stands in a lab holding a petri dish

Faculty focus on Kevin Healy

Kevin E. Healy is the Jan Fandrianto and Selfia Halim Distinguished Professor in Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley in the Departments of Bioengineering, and Materials Science and Engineering. His group currently conducts research in the areas of: bioinspired stem cell microenvironments to control stem cell lineage specification and self-organization into microtissues or…

Professional in Residence Katja Brose: Breaking down scientific silos

Katja Brose, PhD, is a science program officer at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). Brose is joining the QB3-Berkeley Professionals in Residence (PIR) program on January 26th, 2023. UC Berkeley trainees may register for Brose’s PIR events here. Brose spoke with graduate student Samvardhini Sridharan about her career and the opportunities she’s had to wear…

Alien bits of DNA that inhabit single-celled microorganisms known as archaea, shown here in a scanning-electron microscope image, appear to assimilate the genes of their hosts, much like the Borg in Star Trek. These large lengths of DNA may be augmenting archaea’s ability to remove methane from soil and thus could play a role in reducing this potent greenhouse gas.

Like the Borg of Star Trek, these ‘aliens’ assimilate DNA from other microbes

Only a meter or two below our feet dwells a wealth of microbes whose riches remain largely unexplored. It’s a realm where bacteria, bacteria-like organisms called archaea and fungi mingle with viruses and other non-living bits of DNA or DNA — all living with, in or on one another. In that alien world, researchers have…