The Garcia Lab

Physical Biology of the Embryo
@ UC Berkeley

Our mission is to understand, predict, and control developmental programs


Over the last few decades, impressive progress has been made in uncovering how embryonic development is driven by genes connected in complex regulatory networks. Our research goal is to endow these networks with quantitative and molecular information that makes it possible to precisely predict how the gene expression patterns that dictate cellular identity are prescribed by input activators and repressors, and the arrangement of binding sites for these transcription factors on the DNA. We test our models by systematically varying DNA regulatory architecture and by inventing new technology to perform precision measurements of the flow of information along the central dogma.


Latest News


Oct 2022

Congratulations to Prof. Hernan Garcia for officially becoming a tenure faculty!!



May 2022

Congratulations to the latest PhDs to graduate from the Garcia Lab, Dr. Nicholas Lammers and Dr. Dennis Sun!!
Nick will be starting a postdoc with Cole Trapnell at Univ of Washington in the fall, and Dennis is off to a Scientist role.
We wish you both the best as you begin your next scientific adventures!

And congratulations to our graduating undergrad researcher, Kaitlin, who is moving to Boston later this summer to start a PhD in Chemical Biology at Harvard!

Thesis lab decisions are in and we have two new PhD students in the lab - welcome Arman (Biophysics) and Andrea (Physics)!!

February 2022

We're excited to welcome two MCB rotation students, Claudia and Alex, to the lab! We look forward to working with you both over the next few months!

January 2022

Hernan was named a 2021 Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator, an award which aims to build engaged, collaborative communities of Bay Area scientists
to undertake creative and innovative research that will help solve the biggest challenges in biomedicine.

Hernan has also been selected by the Society for Developmental Biology as their 2022 Elizabeth D. Hay New Investigator
for his pioneering use of quantitative imaging methods to gain new insights into mechanisms of gene regulation.
Congratulations, Hernan!!

And we are excited to welcome Andrea, a physics rotation student, who will be joining the lab for the spring semester!

December 2021

Congratulations to Dr. Elizabeth Eck and Dr. Yang Joon Kim on completing their PhDs!!
In January, Liz will begin her postdoc in Antonio Giraldez's lab at Yale, and Yang Joon will start as a Bioinformatics Data Scientist at the Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub.
We'll miss you both but are excited for you to pursue your next roles!

November 2021

We are excited to welcome Joey, an MCB grad student who will be rotating in our lab for the next few months!