Below are articles from various sources about members of MCB and their research.
MCB Professor Michael Eisen has been named the new Editor-in-Chief of eLife, a peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal for biomedical and life sciences. Eisen has long been a vocal proponent of open-access scientific publishing and reforming research communication.
Congratulations to Associate Professor of MCB, NST & Chemistry Daniel Nomura for winning an ASPIRE Award from the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research! This award "funds high risk, high reward approaches to solving complex problems in cancer research that tend to fall outside the scope of other funding opportunities."
Nomura's lab is mapping hotspots of binding sites in human proteins that have been traditionally considered "undruggable" and developing novel small molecule drugs that bind to those proteins.
Congratulations to MCB Assistant Professor Priya Moorjani, who has been named a 2019 Sloan Research Fellow! The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awards this fellowship to outstanding early-career researchers and funds $70,000 over two years to fund their research.
Moorjani's lab studies evolutionary history and its impact on human adaptation and disease.
New research published in Nature from Assistant Adjunct Professor Professor Karen Davies and Associate Professor David Savage reveals the structure of NDH, a protein structure necessary for photosynthesis. This new molecular blueprint will allow researchers to directly test hypotheses of how NDH facilitates sugar production.
“This work will lead to a better understanding of how photosynthesis occurs, which could allow us to improve the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants and other green organisms – potentially boosting the amount of food, and thus biomass, they produce,” said lead researcher Davies.
A new paper published in Nature from the lab of MCB Associate Professor Ahmet Yildiz shows how the structure of dynein, a family of cytoskeletal motor proteins, determines its directionality. By engineering variants of dynein with altered stalk angles, the researchers uncover why all dyneins move toward only the minus end of a microtubule during cytoskeletal movement.
The research is a collaboration with scientists from the Medical Research Council in the UK and Istanbul Technical University.
Congratulations to Professors Daniel Fletcher and Iswar Hariharan, two new Miller Professors from MCB! The Miller Professorship award allows UC Berkeley faculty the opportunity to join the interdisciplinary community surrounding the Miller Institute and pursue new research directions.
A new paper published in Nature from the labs of MCB Professors Jennifer Doudna and Eva Nogales reveals the power and potential of the CRISPR-CasX gene editing enzyme. Compared to its well-studied cousins Cas9 and Cas12, CasX is much smaller and may be better shaped for more efficient genetic engineering.
Congratulations to MCB & Chemistry Professor Chris Chang, winner of the 2019 Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Chemistry from Tel Aviv University. This prize is awarded to outstanding young scientists under 45 years of age who exhibit great originality and excellence in their research.
A new discovery from MCB Professor of the Graduate School Terry Machen and a team from the University of Saskatchewan may lead to new cystic fibrosis drugs that are more effective and better-tolerated by those suffering from the disease.
New research from the lab of MCB Professor Marla Feller shows visual stimuli can shape the visual system before eye opening.
These results open up a whole new area of research. “No one has essentially put a mouse in the dark before the eyes open, because they thought it would have no effect,” Feller says. Her next step is to investigate how light exposure before eye opening — which happens in nature for many species of mice — might influence the development of the circuitry within the retina itself.
Congratulations to MCB Professor Jeffery Cox, Professor Britt Glaunsinger, and Associate Professor Arash Komeili on their elections as Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology! They join a cohort of scientists from around the world who have made significant contributions to the advancement of microbiology.
View all the 2019 AAM Fellows here.
Congratulations to MCB Assistant Professor Stephan Lammel, recipient of the 2019 C.J. Herrick Award in Neuroanatomy! This award from the American Association of Anatomists honors an early-career investigator who has made important contributions to biomedical science and the field of neuroanatomy.
Lammel will be honored at the AAA Closing Awards Ceremony Reception & Dinner in Orlando, Florida, in April 2019.
View all the 2019 AAA award recipients here.
New research from the lab of MCB Professor Daniel Feldman challenges the common assumption that lack of inhibition or too much excitation in neurons cause the disease symptoms of autism.
“Many groups are searching for ways to increase inhibition in the brain... on the assumption that increasing inhibition will restore the brain back to normal,” said Feldman. “But actually, our results suggest that loss of inhibition might represent a useful compensation that the brain is doing, or might be unrelated to disease symptoms.”
A remarkable new 3D map of the fly brain from the lab of MCB Professor & HHMI Investigator Eric Betzig allows researchers to visit any of the fly's 40 million synapses – and took only 3 days to produce.
This rapid 3D imaging technique may ultimately allow researchers to judge strength of neural connections and trace those involved in decision-making and memory, among many other uses. Watch the video >
Undergraduates: Here’s your chance to gain hands-on experience working with CRISPR technology! Enroll in our unique Summer 2019 workshop and learn the CRISPR research essentials.
Sponsored by Innovative Genomics Institute.
Photo courtesy of Associate Professor Matthew Welch
University of California, Berkeley
Dept. of Molecular & Cell Biology
142 LSA #3200
Berkeley, CA 94720-3200
Phone: (510) 643–3406
Email: mcbchair@berkeley.edu
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