July 18 — A professor of immunology, biochemistry and molecular biology, Mark Schlissel was named dean of the Biological Sciences Division, replacing W. Geoffrey Owen, who served as dean from 2002 until retiring last month. Schlissel's areas of expertise are immunology and pathogenesis — the mechanisms through which disease is caused.

Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer praised Schlissel as "a prolific scholar and researcher, an excellent teacher and mentor, and a dedicated public servant." Schlissel's research focuses on the regulation of lymphocyte development, genetic transcription, chromatin structure, and V(D)J recombination. He's the current recipient of a National Institutes of Health merit award.

Schlissel joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1999 as a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, and recently served as the department's co-chair. After earning his B.A. at Princeton University (1979) and his M.D. and Ph.D. in physiological chemistry at Johns Hopkins (1986), Schlissel did his residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he taught until moving to UC Berkeley.