MCB celebrates some of its incredible undergrad researchers of 2017 -- see our Spring Newsletter feature. As the Fall Semester approaches, we look forward to seeing returning students and interacting with a new batch too!
Department News
Below are articles from various sources about members of MCB and their research.
August 02, 2017
MCB Assistant Professor Evan Miller, who is also faculty in the College of Chemistry, is the recipient of the NeuroNex Innovation Award for research on Chemical and Genetic Methods to Measure and Manipulate Neurons with Light.
July 24, 2017
"UC Berkeley researchers have discovered how Cas1-Cas2, the proteins responsible for the ability of the CRISPR immune system in bacteria to adapt to new viral infections, identify the site in the genome where they insert viral DNA so they can recognize it later and mount an attack."
July 24, 2017
Amy Shyer, a Miller postdoctoral fellow in the Harland lab, former UC Visiting Scholar Alan Rodrigues, and others discover that traction and resistance are key to cellular self organization in the skin. Their findings could lead to advanced tissue engineering for skin grafts complete with hair follicles and sweat pores.
July 20, 2017
"With one eye on potential bioterrorism threats, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency today announced $65 million in funding to seven projects around the country – including one led by UC Berkeley – to improve the safety and accuracy of gene editing."
July 13, 2017
MCB Professor Ehud Isacoff and a team of scientists received funding from DARPA to develp neural optical devices allowing 2-way communication in the brain utilizing light, a miniaturized microscope and 3D holograms. The research could eventually provide a way to compensate for visual or tactile deficits in humans.
July 11, 2017
Professor Jennifer Doudna has written a popular science book about her personal and professional experiences in CRISPR research. The book is co-authored by her former graduate student, Sam Sternberg.
July 06, 2017
A paper published in Cell Metabolism by HHMI Investigator and MCB Professor Andrew Dillin's lab, his former postdoc Celine Riera, and co-authored by the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research and others suggests that smelling what you eat may play an important role in how the body deals with calories.
June 26, 2017
Silvio Temprana, a postdoc in Assistant Professor Hillel Adesnik's lab, is one of 10 Pew Latin American Fellows in the Biomedical Sciences. He is studying information processing in the brain and whether an animal's perception can be altered.
June 23, 2017
A Berkeley Lab team led by Dr. Gary Karpen, Adjunct Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, "uncovered evidence that heterochromatin organizes large parts of the genome into specific regions of the nucleus using liquid-liquid phase separation, a mechanism well-known in physics but whose importance for biology has only recently been revealed."