Department News

Below are articles from various sources about members of MCB and their research.

June 04, 2018

MCB & Chemistry Professor Jennifer Doudna is a co-laureate of the 2018 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience for her groundbreaking invention of CRISPR-Cas9 technology.

The Kavli Prize is awarded biennially by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the Kavli Foundation and recognizes scientists who have made seminal advancements in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience.

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June 03, 2018

A new article published in Science, co-authored by MCB Professors Eric Betzig (supervising author) and David Drubin, describes new advancements in microscopy that reveal incredibly detailed images of cell dynamics in their native state as they travel and interact throughout live tissue. These advancements apply adaptive optics to light sheet microscopy to provide remarkably detailed views of the three-dimensional multicellular environment compared to those produced from a traditional glass slide.

May 29, 2018

It's been an exciting and busy Spring!

Learn about the new imaging facilities on campus, read about MCB's recent collaborations with alumni and industry, catch up on community happenings and events, and much more!

Read it here now

May 22, 2018

Former MCB Professor Mary-Claire King is the 2018 recipient of the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine for mapping the first breast cancer gene. The Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine is awarded to those in the field of biomedical sciences whose discoveries "have led to significant victories in our longstanding war against illness and suffering."

King is currently a Professor of Genome Sciences and Medical Genetics at the University of Washington. She received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1973.

May 17, 2018

New research from the lab of MCB Professor & HHMI Investigator Eva Nogales has advanced our understanding of the tau protein, which is crucial in the development of Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders.

The team used cryo-electron microscopy to determine how the tau protein interacts with the microtubules of neurons. Under normal conditions, this interaction helps stabilize the cytoskeleton of neurons and prevent abnormal Alzheimer's-causing protein tangles.

May 08, 2018

HHMI Investigator and Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology Eva Nogales was recently elected by ASCB members to serve as the 2020 ASCB President. 

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May 08, 2018

MCB graduate students Franziska (Franzi) Lorbeer, in the Hockemeyer lab, and Ryan Morrie, in the Feller lab, were chosen as two of 600 outstanding young scientists under age 35 to attend the 68th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany. The international forum for scientific exchange that occurs in June will attract scientists from 84 countries and a record 41 Nobel Laureates.

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May 01, 2018

HHMI Investigator and Professor of Neurobiology Yang Dan, and Director of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and Professor of Neurobiology Ehud Isacoff are two of five UC Berkeley faculty members elected to the National Academy of Sciences today. The academy is the most prestigious scientific society in the United States and provides science, engineering and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations. 

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April 30, 2018

Three MCB postdocs Alan Mardinly, Nicolas Pégard, and Ian Oldenburg are first authors of a paper published today in Nature Neuroscience along with Stephen Brohawn, Hillel Adesnik, Laura Waller and other researchers. They have devised a holographic brain modulator capable of stimulating single neurons and copying real patterns of brain activity to fool the brain into thinking it has felt, seen, or sensed something. They hope to develop a miniaturized device that could be used as a neural prosthetic replacing lost sensations after degenerative disease or injury, allowing the blind to see, or the paralyzed to feel touch.

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April 27, 2018
Image credit: Janet Iwasa
MCB Professors Kathleen Collins and Eva Nogales have published a new paper in Nature describing the three-dimensional structure of human telomerase, an enzyme that replaces depleted nucleotides back onto telomeres at the ends of chromosomes.

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