Biological Sciences

Researchers simulate an entire fly brain on a laptop. Is a human brain next?

October 2, 2024
Robert Sanders

By digitally mapping the whole brain of a fruit fly, scientists hope to gain insight into human brain disorders.

As a large team of scientists recently completed the assembly of a complete wiring diagram of the adult fruit fly brain, Phil Shiu decided to simulate that massive circuit — 139,255 neurons and 50 million connections — in a computer.

That simulation, which can run on a laptop, proved amazingly good at predicting how the real fly brain responds to stimuli. In a paper published...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2024/10/02/researchers-simulate-an-entire-fly-brain-on…

How looking closely led this cell biologist to world-changing breakthroughs

September 30, 2024
Public Affairs

Hear Randy Schekman, a UC Berkeley professor of Molecular and Cell Biology, explain his Nobel Prize-winning work in just 101 seconds.

Screenshot of man speaking to camera with an inset of cells next to him

For Randy Schekman, a UC Berkeley professor of Molecular and Cell Biology, the study of life and basic research has been a calling since...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2024/09/18/how-looking-closely-led-this-cell-biologist…

Richard Harland named Dean of Biological Sciences Division

September 18, 2024

Chancellor Rich Lyons and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Ben Hermalin announced today that Interim Dean Richard Harland has been appointed as dean of the Division of Biological Sciences:

Dear Campus Community,

We are pleased to announce that Richard Harland has been selected to serve as dean of the College of Letters & Science Division of Biological Sciences at UC Berkeley. Professor Harland has been serving the university as interim dean since July 2024, senior associate dean since 2016, and professor of molecular and cellular biology...

The biological sciences have a new leader in Richard Harland. Read his first interview as dean.

September 19, 2024
by Alexander Rony
Four decades after arriving at UC Berkeley as a new faculty member, Richard Harland remains fascinated by embryos, evolution, and early developmental biology. In his first public interview as dean, Harland explained why he came to Berkeley, what it takes to enable top-tier research, how the division serves the state, and what pulled him away from his beloved lab to take on a leadership role.

Podcast: Reengineering Life: The Next Frontiers in Science

September 11, 2024
Fareed Zakaria GPS

Fareed Zakaria GPS takes a comprehensive look at foreign affairs and global policies through in-depth, one-on-one interviews and fascinating roundtable discussions.

On the September 2, 2024 episode: Reengineering Life: The Next Frontiers in Science

Fareed examines two emerging technologies that are already changing life as we know it—CRISPR gene editing and artificial intelligence—in interviews with two women who pioneered them: UC Berkeley’s Jennifer Doudna and Stanford’s Fei-Fei Li.

https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/fareed-zakaria-gps/episodes/750dac32-a9b9-11e…

CRISPR co-creator Jennifer Doudna on watching her groundbreaking gene-editing technology help sickle cell patients

September 11, 2024
Ainsley Harris, Fast Company

Jennifer Doudna wearing a white lab coat and standing in a labWhen biochemist Jennifer Doudna and her research partner, Emmanuelle Charpentier, published a paper in Science 12 years ago, they had a hunch that their findings would transform how genomics is used in medicine. The paper outlined a method they’d developed for editing DNA that used an RNA-based system known as CRISPR-Cas9. The approach was more efficient and precise...

https://www.fastcompany.com/91175709/jennifer-doudna-crisper-cas9-10-most-innova…

Podcast: Berkeley Talks: What is understanding? Berkeley scholars discuss

September 9, 2024
Anne Brice

Four people sitting in chairs, talking in front of a black backgroundIn Berkeley Talks episode 208, three UC Berkeley professors from a wide range of disciplines — psychology, biology and ethnic studies — broach a deep question: What is understanding?

“When I think about it through the lens of being a psychologist, I really think about understanding as a demonstration of, say, knowledge that we have...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2024/09/06/berkeley-talks-what-is-understanding/

Creature the size of a dust grain found hiding in California’s Mono Lake

August 22, 2024
Robert Sanders

Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierra Nevada is known for its towering tufa formations, abundant brine shrimp and black clouds of alkali flies uniquely adapted to the salty, arsenic- and cyanide-laced water.

University of California, Berkeley, researchers have now found another unusual creature lurking in the lake’s briny shallows — one that could tell scientists about the origin of animals more than 650 million years ago.

The organism is a choanoflagellate, a microscopic, single-celled form of life that can divide and develop into multicellular colonies in a way that’s similar to...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2024/08/22/creature-the-size-of-a-dust-grain-found-hid…

L&S staff honored with 2024 Excellence in Management awards

April 23, 2024

The Berkeley Staff Assembly recently announced the recipients of the 36th annual Excellence in Management Award, who are recognized for leading their teams and team members to meaningful accomplishments this past year. This year’s award theme, “Cultivating Staff, Harvesting Success: Recognizing Excellence in Management" highlights leaders who excel in cultivating their staff, leading to overall success for the team and the organization.

The award recipients will be honored at a ceremony on April 30 from 2-3 pm, where Chancellor...

A Better Understanding of DNA Unpacking

August 6, 2024
Media Relations

To transcribe the information contained in our genes or to repair the dozens of breaks that occur daily in our DNA, our enzymes must be able to directly access the DNA to perform their functions. However, in the cell nucleus, this access is limited because the DNA strands are often tightly coiled and packed around proteins like threads around spools.

Researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), UC Berkeley, the Institute for Systems Biology, and Université Laval now have a better understanding of the protein complex that creates access to packed DNA, TIP60...

https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2024/08/06/a-better-understanding-of-dna-unpacking/