News & Events

12/27/2005 - Uncovering the secret to cell growth
Using a customized atomic force microscope, Dan Fletcher and his colleagues have discovered new evidence for how the fibrous scaffolding within our cells, which is made of the protein actin, responds to obstacles in its environment. This may help scientists better understand how white blood cells move, or how cancerous tumors grow. More >

12/16/2005 - Food additive inhibits longevity enzyme in yeast, increases cell toxicity
Dihydrocoumarin (DHC), a common food and cosmetics additive, has been found to inhibit the activity of enzymes associated with lifespan control in yeast and other organisms, according to a study by Jasper Rine and other researchers. Human white blood cells exposed to DHC also experienced increased cell toxicity. (Photo by Robert H. Mohlenbrock, USDA). More >

12/12/2005 - Researchers probe how hepatitis C hijacks cells
Viruses are able to hijack the machinery inside cells to make copies of themselves to spread an infection. Now, Jennifer Doudna and Eva Nogales have detailed how hepatitis C hijacks the ribosome – the cell's protein-making machine – and they hope to get a clear enough picture to design a drug to stop it. More >

12/02/2005 - Research patently in the public interest
Carol Mimura, who heads UC Berkeley's intellectual property operations, has helped put Berkeley at the forefront of nationwide efforts to bring new medicines and technologies to those who may need them the most but lack the means to pay for them. Read the story in The Berkeleyan. More >

11/29/2005 - UCSF, GE Healthcare announce cancer research collaboration
UCSF has announced a collaboration with GE Healthcare to develop new technology for clinical use that tracks real-time changes in tissue metabolism with unprecedented sensitivity. The pre-clinical and clinical studies will be conducted at QB3. More >

11/29/2005 - QB3’s UCSF inaugural features new industry partnerships
Technology industry leaders announced several major new research alliances with QB3 at the inauguration of the institute's headquarters at UCSF Mission Bay. More >

11/23/2005 - Feldheim research reveals mammalian neuronal development
David Feldheim and his colleagues have made headway in the quest to understand neuronal development in mammals. Their research is described in the November 23 issue of Neuron. More >

11/23/2005 - NIH funds QB3 nanomedicine
A QB3-led collaboration among scientists at UCSF, UCB, and LBNL has been awarded a five-year, $7 million NIH grant in synthetic biology and nanomedicine. More >

11/15/2005 - Systems Biology Center connects QB3 and Peking University
A research collaboration between QB3 and the Peking University Center for Theoretical Biology will integrate the biological data acquisition strengths of the former with the physical and theoretical strengths of the latter, a move which may lead to more effective, safer medications. More >

11/14/2005 - Seeing cellular machinery
The basic structural and functional units of all life, cells convert nutrients to energy, perform highly specialized tasks based on instructions stored in their DNA, and reproduce themselves. How are these feats accomplished? Eva Nogales is using electron microscopy to watch these cellular mechanisms in action. Read the story in ScienceMatters@Berkeley. More >

11/14/2005 - Haussler to speak at World Technology Summit
David Haussler will discuss health, medicine, and biotechnology at the opening session of the 2005 World Technology Summit this week in San Francisco. He is also winner of the World Technology Award in the category of information technology software. More >

11/03/2005 - New x-rays of cell's ribosome could lead to better antibiotics
The ribosome, a nano-machine that manufactures all of our cells' proteins, is also a target of many antibiotics. New, sharp x-ray images of the ribosome will help researchers understand how today's antibiotics interfere with the machine, and could lead to improved drugs that throw a wrench into it. More >

11/01/2005 - Organs, heal thyselves!
As the body ages, the molecules that regulate stem cells eventually change and inhibit their regenerative properties. Irina Conboy and her colleagues are developing an injectable nanomaterial that could spur stem cell growth and help aged organs to heal themselves again. Read the story in Lab Notes. More >

10/28/2005 - Modus operandi of parasitic bacterium revealed
Bill Sullivan and his colleagues have found that the parasitic bacterium Wolbachia ensures its eventual transmission in its host’s development cycle by establishing an early infection in the cell destined to become the oocyte. More >

10/26/2005 - QB3: An incubator for innovation
In studying how to create membranes that act as a home for stem cells and tissues, Tejal Desai, an engineer, has to interact with and understand biomedical and clinical scientists who speak entirely different technical languages. What she is doing for cells is like what QB3 is doing on a much larger scale. More >

09/30/2005 - Steve Chu is just getting started
For most scientists, winning a Nobel Prize is the culmination of a lifetime of research. But LBNL Director Steven Chu was only 49 when he shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics. And to hear him tell it, he has several more careers ahead of him. More >

09/26/2005 - 'Protein yoga' reveals secrets of complex enzyme folding
One way to figure out how proteins faithfully fold into complex, three-dimensional shapes is to carefully unfold them and then watch as they refold. This feat has now been achieved by UC Berkeley and QB3 researchers, who grabbed the ends of a small protein with optical tweezers and gently pulled and stretched: a process they refer to as "protein yoga." More >

09/22/2005 - Spiroplasma's novel mode of transport
What does a telephone cord have in common with a bacterium? Researchers at UC Berkeley have discovered that the movements of Spiroplasma, tiny helical bacteria that infect plants and insects, resemble a kink moving down a spiral phone cord. Their findings appear in Cell. More >

09/21/2005 - Haussler to receive Dickson Prize
Carnegie Mellon University will award its prestigious Dickson Prize in Science to David Haussler for his contributions to the field of bioinformatics. Haussler will receive an award of $50,000 and will deliver a public lecture as part of the prize ceremony to be held in March 2006. More >

09/09/2005 - QB3 campuses among first stem cell grantees
On September 9, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) approved its first grants, among them training grants for a total of $7.3 million to QB3’s three UC campuses to establish training in the scientific and social issues surrounding the study and use of stem cells. More >

09/07/2005 - Mapping cellular signals
Kevan Shokat is a chemist who thinks like a biologist. He's developing chemical tools to understand and manipulate the complex communications system at the heart of every cell, research could lead to new drugs to combat diseases like cancer and diabetes. Read the story in ScienceMatters@Berkeley. More >

09/05/2005 - UCSC scientists contribute to analysis of chimp genome
UCSC scientists have helped catalog the genetic differences that have accumulated since the lineages that led to modern humans and chimpanzees diverged from a common ancestor about 6 million years ago. The results of their analysis were recently published in the journal Nature. More >

08/20/2005 - Scientists, engineers, bioethicists gather for QB3 symposium
More than 250 people assembled August 19-20 at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus to explore synthetic biology at the QB3 Life Engineering Symposium, funded in part by the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative. QB3 affiliates Chris Voigt and Jay Keasling organized the event. More >

08/19/2005 - Gov. Schwarzenegger gets taste of UC "brain power" in visit to LBNL
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger traded in political science for a look at the future of physical science on August 19 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he toured the Advanced Light Source and praised the "brain power in our UC system." QB3 affiliates Steven Chu and Jay Keasling shared their expertise with the governor. More >

08/09/2005 - QB3 and LBNL establish joint biological data management core
To help researchers turn the growing mountains of biological data into scientific knowledge, QB3 and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have agreed to turn the Labs Biological Data Management and Technology Center into a joint Biological Data Management Core Facility. More >

08/08/2005 - Deamer, Akeson awarded grant for faster, cheaper DNA sequencing
A team including David Deamer and Mark Akeson has received a major grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) to develop new technology for genome sequencing. The grant is part of a NHGRI program to develop "revolutionary genome sequencing technologies" that will enable a human-sized genome to be sequenced for $1,000 or less. More >

08/08/2005 - Scientists exploit HIV's noisy genetics to force virus into latency
A novel strategy for taming AIDS infections has emerged from a new look at the way HIV evades current treatments through random genetic fluctuations. QB3 researchers David Schaffer and Adam Arkin report their findings in the journal Cell, and suggest it may be possible to force all viruses to come out of hiding into the sights of anti-HIV drugs or, more likely, force all viruses into latency. More >

08/02/2005 - Human cerebellum, cortex age in different ways
The human brain changes with age, but a study by a team of researchers that includes QB3's Michael Eisen shows that different parts of the brain age in different ways. The same study also reveals significant differences between the human brain and that of our nearest relative, the chimpanzee. More >

07/25/2005 - Landmark study highlights the importance of "junk" DNA in higher organisms
A team led by UC Santa Cruz researchers has completed the most comprehensive comparison to date of conserved DNA sequences in the genomes of vertebrates, insects, worms, and yeast, and reports in Genome Research that as organism complexity increases, so too does the proportion of conserved bases in the non-protein-coding (or "junk") DNA sequences. Read the story in UCSC Currents. More >

07/13/2005 - Sweet bioscience
Carolyn Bertozzi and her graduate students have devised new chemical tools to uncover how sugars and sugar polymers on the surface of cells are involved in various biological processes, from intracellular communication to the growth of tumors. Someday, their research could aid in diagnosing cancer and other diseases. Read the story in ScienceMatters@Berkeley. More >

07/11/2005 - Academic and industry bioengineers convene in Santa Cruz
The sixth annual UC Systemwide Bioengineering Symposium, held at UC Santa Cruz in June, brought together a broad range of scientists and students to exchange ideas and share recent advances in the field of bioengineering. The three-day event drew 172 participants from the biotechnology industry, the National Institutes of Health, and all of the UC campuses. More >

06/28/2005 - Life detection instrument passes key test on road to Mars
The dry, dusty, treeless expanse of Chile's Atacama Desert is the most lifeless spot on the face of the Earth, and that's why Alison Skelley and QB3 faculty affiliate Richard Mathies joined a team of NASA scientists there earlier this month. If their new device could detect life in that crusty, arid land, then it would have a good chance of detecting life on the planet Mars. More >

06/27/2005 - Biotech pioneer appointed to UCSF faculty
James Wells, Ph.D., cofounder of the South San Francisco-based pharmaceutical company Sunesis and a pioneer in developing new drug discovery and protein engineering technologies, has been appointed professor in pharmacy and medicine at UCSF and will also direct a new QB3 center to boost drug discovery. More >

06/24/2005 - DOE official visits new bioscience center
DOE Office of Science director Ray Orbach visited the new Berkeley West Biocenter during his June 24 visit to Berkeley. Orbach received a tour of UC Berkeley professor and LBNL physical biosciences division director Jay Keasling's lab at the west Berkeley facility, during which Keasling and Orbach discussed the potential of synthetic biology to help achieve the DOE's goals in energy production and bioremediation. More >

June 2005 - HHMI extends Yishi Jin's appointment
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has extended the appointment of biologist Yishi Jin as an HHMI investigator through 2010. Jin, a UC Santa Cruz professor of molecular, cell, and developmental biology, studies the development of the nervous system using the roundworm C. elegans as a model organism. More >

05/25/2005 - New home for synthetic biology
Leading QB3 and LBNL researchers in synthetic biology have moved into new research space in west Berkeley. The partnership is designed to accelerate growth in the multidisciplinary field, which holds promise for preventing and treating disease, generating new energy sources, and preventing and mitigating environmental threats. More >

05/13/2005 - DOE funds project to explore extreme organisms
A project to sequence the genomes of five microscopic species that grow and live in boiling hot conditions, members of the domain Archaea, has received support from the Community Sequencing Program of the Department of Energy. Project researchers come from UCSC, UCLA, and Penn State, and include QB3's Todd Lowe. More >

05/05/2005 - Students tour Plexxikon
Local biotech company Plexxikon hosted eleven UC Berkeley students on May 5 for a full tour, lecture on drug development, and visits with company executives. The students are participating in QB3 and Department of Bioengineering internship programs. More >

05/03/2005 - Carolyn Bertozzi named to NAS
UC Berkeley chemistry professor Carolyn R. Bertozzi was among 72 new members and 18 new foreign associates announced May 3 by the National Academy of Sciences. More >

04/19/2005 - Jay Keasling to head division at LBNL
QB3's Jay Keasling has been appointed the new Director of the Physical Biosciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, succeeding Graham Fleming, who founded the division in 1997 and was recently appointed Deputy Director. Read the story in Today at Berkeley Lab. More >

04/13/2005 - Lee and Schmidt receive Keck Futures Grants
The National Academies Keck Futures Initiative has awarded Futures grants to QB3's Luke Lee and Holger Schmidt for their research in nanoscience and nanotechnology. More >

04/08/2005 - Membrane protein research gets a boost
UCSF’s Mission Bay campus is now headquarters for a new center to advance research on membrane proteins – proteins that are on the outside surface of cells and are the targets of nearly half of all drugs. More >

03/31/2005 - A new guide to exploring the protein universe
Parallel universes are the subjects of heated debate in cosmology, but there is a parallel universe located here on Earth, and the fabric of its existence is as critical to our own as the fabric of space and time. Read the story in Science@Berkeley Lab. More >

Spring 2005 - Turning biology into an engineering field
Synthetic biologists snap genes, proteins, and cells together like Tinkertoys to build living systems, including chemical factories that produce anti-malaria and anti-AIDS drugs. Read the story in Forefront magazine, published by UC Berkeley's College of Engineering. More >

March 2005 - Petri dishes on a miniature scale
UC Berkeley bioengineer Luke Lee and his colleagues are developing technology that could lead to automated laboratories the size of fingernails that accelerate drug discovery, synthetic biology, stem cell research, and the development of new biomaterials for implants. Read the story in Lab Notes. More >

03/21/2005 - Two QB3 scientists receive HHMI funding honor
Two UC San Francisco professors affiliated with QB3 were named March 21 as Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators, a highly prized honor that carries significant, long-term research support. With the addition of Joseph DeRisi and Kevan Shokat, QB3 now boasts a total of 16 HHMI Investigators. More >

03/16/2005 - Researchers developing MicroJet for ouchless injections
Taking a child to the doctor's office for shots can be a pain on many levels. But bioengineers at UC Berkeley are hoping to ease that experience by creating a needleless injector, the MicroJet, that uses electronics instead of a needle to deliver drugs. More >

03/10/2005 - Graham Fleming named LBNL deputy director
UC Berkeley’s Graham Fleming has been named deputy director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, but will continue as Berkeley QB3 director. Chemistry dean Clayton Heathcock will assume a new QB3 role. More >

03/03/2005 - Genome centers release reference gene set
Researchers at UC Santa Cruz, the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI) have released the results of a project to identify a core set of genes that can be located in the human genome and have been validated as coding for proteins. More >

02/25/2005 - Bacterial genomes found lurking inside recently sequenced fruit fly genomes
When scientists finished sequencing the genomes of seven fruit fly species last year, little did they know that they had also sequenced the genes of several bacteria that dwell undetected inside fruit fly embryos. QB3's Michael Eisen, a geneticist who mines the fruit fly and other genomes for clues to how genes shape the organism, had an inkling they were there, and in a quick search of the genome database, turned up a slew of bacterial genes. More >

02/01/2005 - Key cell division mechanism identified
A Berkeley team's findings may explain how a complex of proteins, called kinetochores, can recognize and stay attached to microtubules, hollow fibers in the walls of biological cells that are responsible for the faithful segregation of chromosomes during cell division. Read the story in Berkeley Lab Research News. More >

01/27/2005 - UC Berkeley celebrates a construction milestone
Hosted by UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and QB3, guests gathered on January 27 to celebrate the topping-off of the 11-story Stanley Biosciences and Bioengineering Facility, a building that is integral to the growth of health sciences on the campus. More >

01/21/2005 - Computational artistry
UC Berkeley bioengineer Kimmen Sjölander develops computational methods that reveal evolutionary relationships among proteins, the workhorses of all life. Her stories of life, work, and creativity are explored in Forefront, published by UC Berkeley's College of Engineering. More >

01/20/2005 - Photosynthesis mystery solved
Lead by QB3's Graham Fleming, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley have identified one of the key molecules that help protect plants from oxidation damage as the result of absorbing too much light. Read the story in Berkeley Lab Research News. More >

01/11/2005 - NPR's Morning Edition explores neglected diseases
The January 11 broadcast of National Public Radio's Morning Edition highlighted the Institute for OneWorld Health's efforts to develop cures for neglected diseases. QB3's James McKerrow, whose lab helped develop the first new drug for Chagas' disease in decades, is featured. More >

01/10/2005 - Bustamante honored by American Association of Physics Teachers
UC Berkeley's Carlos Bustamante is one of two physics professors receiving high honors from the American Association of Physics Teachers for contributions to educating students and the public about physics. Read the story in Inside Science News.  More >

01/03/2005 - Potential SARS drug target found
Research on the genome of the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has revealed an unusual molecular structure that looks like a promising target for antiviral drugs. A team of UC Santa Cruz scientists has determined that the three-dimensional shape of this structure may help the virus hijack the protein-building machinery of infected cells. Read the story in UCSC Currents Online. More >