Biological Sciences

Bats attract many unflattering myths, but one aspect is true: the diseases they carry are extremely virulent. Still, Cara Brook, a disease ecologist who spends two to three months a year in Madagascar, loves her fruit bat subjects. By studying bat viruses, she is able to protect both them and us.

Tulika Singh is a postdoctoral scientist in UC Berkeley’s Harris Research Program, which is run by Professor Eva Harris. Singh was motivated to help others by her family’s history rising out of poverty in India. She studies mosquito-transmitted viruses like Zika and dengue that disproportionately harm poor people in tropical regions.

Singh spoke with UC Berkeley writer Alexander Rony about the life-saving work done by...

Discover how CRISPR, a technology co-created by a UC Berkeley professor, is being used to transform medicine.

A sickle is a crescent-shaped blade once used to harvest wheat. When red blood cells take on that same curved shape, it signals sickle cell disease –– an inherited condition that causes cells to become stiff and sticky, blocking blood flow and triggering episodes of severe, stabbing pain known as vaso-occlusive crises.

Sickle cell disease affects more than 100,000 people in the United States, with an outsized impact on the Black community, and an estimated 8...

Victoria Gray spent 34 years battling the debilitating pain of sickle cell disease. Then she volunteered to be the world's first "prototype" for a CRISPR therapy — trading a life that felt hopeless for a future she never thought she’d see.

At 3 months old, Victoria Gray wouldn’t stop crying. Blood tests brought devastating news: she had sickle cell disease, a genetic blood disorder that blocks blood flow and oxygen delivery to the body. It causes unbearable pain that Victoria describes as “getting struck by lightning and hit by a truck.”

As she got older, Victoria...