When one hears the phrase 'egg-shaped', an oval immediately comes to mind. Chicken eggs are oval, and so are the eggs laid by many land-dwelling animals. But how do oval eggs get that way? Starting from this deceptively simple question, MCB Associate Professor David Bilder and graduate student Saori Haigo report in the journal Science the discovery of a new type of tissue movement that shapes animal organs.
Department News
Below are articles from various sources about members of MCB and their research.
April 05, 2011
Robert Tjian, MCB Professor and HHMI President, received the 2010 Glenn T. Seaborg Medal from the University of California, Los Angeles for oustanding accomplishments in chemistry or biochemistry. Dr. Tjian was also awarded the 2010 Grand Prix Charles‰ÛLÌ©opold Mayer from the French Academy of Sciences for his research on how genes are turned on and off.
March 28, 2011
MCB Professors Karsten Weis and James Berger with their team of researchers have solved the structure of a protein machine critical to the process of mRNA export from the nucleus. The study, published March 27th in the journal Nature, illustrates how energy can be exploited to extrude mRNA molecules from a transport channel, which perforates the nuclear envelope.
February 28, 2011
The Cell & Developmental Biology Division is hosting a one-day Symposium on The Biology of Regeneration on March 22, 2011. Information about the speakers and free registration are available by following the link below.
February 10, 2011
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology David Savage has been awarded the 2011 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.
The Sloan Research Fellowships seek to stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise. These two-year fellowships are awarded yearly to 118 researchers in recognition of distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field.
January 20, 2011
Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology James Berger is a recipient of the NAS Award in Molecular Biology.
Berger is being honored for elucidating the structures of topoisomerases and helicases and providing insights into the biochemical mechanisms that mediate the replication and transcription of DNA.
December 30, 2010
The Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute (HWNI) at the University of California, Berkeley, is seeking a senior, internationally recognized scientist working in any area of neuroscience to serve as Director of the HWNI.
December 30, 2010
Adjunct Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology Gary Karpen and a team of researchers with the "model organism Encyclopedia of DNA Elements" (modENCODE) project have published a new analysis of the fruit fly genome in Science, Nature, and Genome Research that goes beyond the mere genetic sequence to reveal the RNA and chromatin structures that produce a functional organism.
December 29, 2010
Howard Hughes Investigator and Associate Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology Abby Durnburg has been awarded the 2011 Edward Novitski prize by the Genetics Society of America (GSA).
December 09, 2010
How does a neural circuit get wired up to perform specific computations? The Feller lab recently addressed this question by studying the circuit mediates direction selectivity in the retina (Wei et al, Nature, 2010).