Biological Sciences

In two connected papers published in the journal Science last week, researchers from the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) lab of Jennifer Doudna described the surprising discovery of an ancient progenitor of CRISPR systems that had been overlooked because it uses a never-before-seen coding system to find and bind to DNA.

In nature...

The International Balzan Foundation recognized Rasmus Nielsen, a professor of statistics and integrative biology at UC Berkeley, with its 2026 Balzan Prize for Molecular...

We would like to wrap up the 2025–2026 academic year by congratulating all of the current Cal Bears and recent alums who received nationally competitive scholarships and fellowships this academic year, as well as those who submitted strong applications for more than 30 scholarship and fellowship programs our office supports.

The Keck Foundation, whose mission is to boost high-impact basic scientific research, invited UC Berkeley to apply to its one-time Bridge Funding Initiative in order to rapidly deploy funding to early- to mid-career faculty and their graduate students who were especially vulnerable to changes in the federal funding landscape.

Funding for these projects is meant to ensure that there is no disruption to the career trajectories of graduate students and to help retain faculty in their early and middle career stages.

According to the grant’s principal investigator, Vice Chancellor...