Department News

One way to disrupt a mechanical process is to throw a wrench into the works. This also holds true for viruses, biological parasites that hijack a cell's reproductive mechanisms to replicate themselves. The key though to successful sabotage is knowing precisely where to toss the wrench.

The Distinguished Research Mentor award is designed to honor faculty members in the College of Letters & Science who have performed exceptional service as research mentors for undergraduate students.

When UC Berkeley biologist Nipam Patel was searching for a new crustacean to study, one of his graduate students paid a visit to a large public aquarium. Rather than select an organism from one of the breeding tanks, the student sifted through the aquarium's filter system.

A University of California, Berkeley, chemist has put a new twist on the standard chemistry experiment: Instead of using a test tube or flask, she mixes and reacts chemicals in living organisms.

Carolyn Bertozzi's innovative approach involves chemicals that don't interact with the molecules in the body, only with each other. But her in vivo chemistry has great potential for studying cells in living organisms and creating new diagnostics, and perhaps treatments, for disease.

University of California, Berkeley, biochemist Hiroshi Nikaido, M.D., has received the 14th annual Bristol-Myers Squibb "Freedom to Discover" Award for Distinguished Achievement in Infectious Diseases Research.

Nikaido, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at UC Berkeley, was recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to understanding the mechanisms of bacterial resistance to antibiotics and insights that have led to the design of more effective antibiotics.

Carlos Bustamante is a mechanic. He tinkers with machines to see what makes them tick. He talks a lot about torque and force, compression and tension. Bustamante is not an engineer though. He's a UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology, physics, and chemistry. And the devices he studies are the microscopic machines behind life itself--cells, proteins, molecular motors, and DNA.

Read the full article on the ScienceMatters@Berkeley website.

Assistant Professor Nicole King has been chosen as a 2004 Pew Biomedical Scholar. The prestigious award funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by UCSF provides $240,000 over four years to investigators early in thein careers. The title of Dr. King's abstract was "Choanoflagellates and the origin of animal multicellularity."

For more information see the official Press Release.

Professer in Residence Abby Dernburg was one of 57 scientists nationwide selected to receive a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The award was presented in Washington by the president's Science Advisor, John H. Marburger III.

For more information please see the press release at the UC Berkeley Newscenter.