News & Events

December 2006/January 2007 - The 3D language of cells
Beneath your skin, out of your sight, your cells are locked in heated conversation. They have much to say to one another. Who are you? What have you sensed? What do you need? Do you belong? Now Jay Groves is deciphering yet another mode of cellular discourse: spatial patterning. Read the story in ScienceMatters@Berkeley. More >

12/12/2006 - Noller honored by Paul Ehrlich Foundation
The Paul Ehrlich Foundation of Germany has announced that it will award the 2007 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize to Harry Noller for his contribution to the three-dimensional molecular characterization of the complex protein-synthesizing apparatus of cells, the ribosome. More >

12/6/2006 - Kudos for protein structure prediction
Every second summer, professor of biomolecular engineering Kevin Karplus and his laboratory of bioinformatic scientists forgo the beach so that they can come out ahead in the biggest bioinformatic competition in the world. This year was the seventh such competition: the Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction (CASP 7). More >

11/27/2006 - AAAS honors Ellman and Kirsch
Jonathan Ellman and Jack Kirsch have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), bringing the total number of QB3 faculty affiliates who are AAAS fellows to 18. More >

November 2006 - Biology's next big bang
Systems expert Chao Tang thinks biology is on the verge of an intellectual explosion similar to that which occurred within astronomy in the 1600s, when the laws of planetary motion and gravity were postulated and proved. Read more in his two-part interview 1 2.

11/15/2006 - Jay Keasling named Scientist of the Year
Discover Magazine's first Scientist of the Year award has gone to Jay Keasling, who is hoping to "rebuild life itself" through his work in the nascent field of synthetic biology. More >

11/7/2006 - MacroLab targets inner workings of cellular machines
The key to understanding how cells work – and, thus, the nature of disease – lies in determining the three-dimensional configuration of the tiny proteins involved. A new state-of-the-art laboratory at QB3-UC Berkeley, funded by a $2 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation, promises to expand the scope of protein-structure discovery. More >

10/31/2006 - Photoswitches could restore sight to blind retinas
The major cause of blindness in this country is the death of rods and cones in the retina, a disease called macular degeneration. A possible new therapy – giving the gift of sight to other retinal cells – received a boost this month by NIH's nanomedicine initiative, which awarded Ehud Isacoff, Dirk Trauner, and colleagues $6 million to pursue the technique. More >

10/27/2006 - Helping to fill the drug discovery pipeline
Cancer, diabetes, inflammation, malaria. The list of diseases ripe for new treatments is long. Yet the pace of drugs coming to market is actually flat. To help quicken the pace, James Wells heads an effort to screen novel targets and improve ways to identify promising drug candidates. More >

10/23/2006 - New key to tissue engineering discovered
A cellular exercise regimen may be one key to tissue engineering. Song Li and his colleagues have found that when stretched, adult stem cells taken from bone marrow can be nudged towards becoming the type of tissue found in blood vessels. More >

10/19/2006 - HYPER-CEST MRI breaks new ground
Alexander Pines, David Wemmer, and their colleagues have developed a new technique for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) that allows detection of signals from molecules present at 10,000 times lower concentrations than conventional MRI techniques. Read the story in Science@Berkeley Lab. More >

10/18/2006 - New director for Center for Computational Biology
Jasper Rine has been appointed as director of UC Berkeley's Center for Computational Biology (also known as the Computational Biology Initiative), for a three-year term. He succeeds Nicholas Jewell who served for more than two years as acting director. More >

10/12/2006 - Tissue geometry plays breast cancer role
Apropos of National Breast Cancer Awareness month, Dan Fletcher and his colleagues have created a model for studying how breast tissue is shaped and structured during development.  The model may shed new light on how the misbehavior of only a few cells can facilitate metastatic invasion. Read the story in Science@Berkeley Lab. More >

10/9/2006 - Giacomini elected member of Institute of Medicine
Kathleen Giacomini has been elected as a member of the National Academies of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, becoming QB3's fifth faculty affiliate to be so recognized. Election is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of medicine and health. More >

10/4/2006 - Nikon Imaging Center opens
QB3 and UC San Francisco have collaborated with Nikon Instruments Inc. to open the UCSF Nikon Imaging Center at UCSF Mission Bay. The new center features six state-of-the-art optical microscopes for digital imaging of live cells and promises to accelerate research in brain and heart development, cancer, chromosome structure, fat accumulation, and cell division and signaling. More >

September 2006 - Voigt named "2006 Young Inventor"
Since 1999, the editors of Technology Review have honored the young innovators whose inventions and research they find the most exciting. Christopher Voigt was included in their list of 2006 Young Innovators Under 35 for his work on turning microbes into a "photographic" medium. More >

9/22/2006 - New finding on protein signaling
Jeremy Thorner and colleagues reported in the September 22 issue of Cell on a specific mechanism that regulates G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), the target for some of the most widely used pharmaceuticals. Deeper understanding of how GPCRs work may lead to new diagnostics and therapeutic approaches. Read the Cell article. More >

9/21/2006 - QB3 "Garage" for biotech start-ups offers look inside
QB3 recently welcomed visitors to its new Garage, where enterprising scientists are working to translate their ideas into biotech discoveries. More >

9/15/2006 - A deeper look into the ribosome
Harry Noller's laboratory achieved breakthroughs in 1999 and 2001, producing the first high-resolution images of the molecular structure of a complete ribosome. Now, his team has made another major advance with an even higher-resolution image that enables them to construct an atom-by-atom model of the ribosome. More >

9/8/2006 - Desai wins research prize
QB3’s Tejal Desai won the grand prize for her innovative research on oral drug delivery from Eurand, a specialty pharmaceutical company, and the Controlled Release Society (CRS). More >

9/6/2006 - Language of life
What does the work of Noam Chomsky have to do with bioengineering? Ian Holmes is applying Chomsky's theories about grammar and syntax to data from DNA sequencing efforts around the world. His work could shed light on the beginnings of evolution and the development of antiviral drugs. Read the story in Lab Notes. More >

8/16/2006 - Newly discovered gene may hold clues to human brain evolution
Scientists, including CBSE researchers Katherine Pollard, Sofie Salama, and David Haussler, have discovered a gene that has undergone accelerated evolutionary change in humans and is active during a critical stage in brain development. More >

8/10/2006 - Dreyer’s CEO gives bridge funding
The scarcity of funding to translate university research to the marketplace has been called the “valley of death.” To help bridge that gap, the Rogers Family Foundation has granted $250,000 each to Tejal Desai and Michael Marletta for their translational research. More >

8/7/2006 - Surprise finding for stretched DNA
Stretched to its full length, a single molecule of human DNA extends more than three feet, but, when wound up inside the nucleus of a cell, that same molecule measures about one millionth of an inch across. Biologists have long believed that as a molecule of DNA is stretched, its double helix starts to unwind. As much sense as this makes from an intuitive standpoint, a recent experiment lead by Carlos Bustamante proved it not to be the case. More >

8/3/2006 - AIDS vaccine expert to head UCSC Biomolecular Engineering Department
Phillip Berman, a pioneer in the development of recombinant vaccines for AIDS and other infectious diseases, has joined UC Santa Cruz and QB3 to serve as professor and chair of the Department of Biomolecular Engineering. More >

8/3/2006 - New center poised to transform biotech
Aided by a $16 million NSF grant, QB3 has launched the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center at UC Berkeley, with collaborators at UC San Francisco, MIT, Harvard, and Prairie View A&M University. Researchers hope to make it as quick and easy to engineer biology as it now is to assemble microprocessors, hard drives, and memory chips into a computer. More >

7/20/2006 - Which came first, nucleic acids or proteins?
Research by William Scott and graduate student Monika Martick on the atomic-resolution structure of a ribozyme yields insights into RNA catalysis and the origins of life. More >

7/6/2006 - Three researchers receive top honors
Paul Ortiz de Montellano, Christopher Voigt, and James Wells have recently been selected to receive high national recognition for their pioneering research. More >

6/29/2006 - Brittle prions found to be more infectious
Jonathan Weissman and colleagues at UC San Francisco have discovered why some misfolded shapes of a prion protein are more infectious than others – differences that affect how readily prions can trigger abnormal folding in other proteins. More >

6/28/2006 - New field shows steady growth
The UC Berkeley Designated Emphasis in Computational and Genomic Biology program has just held its second annual retreat. Read about the program and Rachel Brem, new faculty member in computational biology. More >

6/26/2006 - UCSC Chancellor Denice Denton dies at 46
Denice D. Denton, who died tragically on June 24, served as UC Santa Cruz's ninth chancellor and was a tireless champion of diversity and excellence. Throughout her brief tenure as chancellor, Denton worked to help strengthen the University of California by reaching out to women and minorities. More >

6/19/2006 - Changing of the guard for QB3-UCSF Scientific Director
David Agard, a major force in launching QB3, is stepping down as QB3-UCSF scientific director to return to his own research. Leading UCSF bioengineer and radiologist Sarah Nelson will take the key leadership post. More >

6/13/2006 - Molecular rules of engagement
Networks of polymers interact to propel cells, molecules in a plant's leaf work together to convert sunlight into energy, and so on. But what are the rules that give rise to these emergent behaviors and can we control them? Phil Geissler is using the tools of theoretical chemistry to find out. Read the story in ScienceMatters@Berkeley. More >

6/13/2006 - Start your protein engines
In the world of hot rods, George Oster would be considered a "motorhead." But the motors he studies aren't souped-up automobile engines. Oster examines the biological nanomachines that propel bacteria through our world and pack DNA into viruses against incredible pressures. Read the story in ScienceMatters@Berkeley. More >

6/8/2006 - SF Mayor and Young Global Leaders visit QB3
Led by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, more than two dozen members of the Forum of Young Global Leaders got a close-up view of QB3's leading-edge science during a recent visit to the UC San Francisco Mission Bay campus. More >

Spring 2006 - Bioengineer shines new light on the other stem cells
Through her research on adult stem cells, Irina Conboy explores how and why such cells stop working as our bodies age. The answers will help scientists learn how to repair organs and tissue, treat immune diseases, and perhaps even tinker with our biological clocks. More >

5/16/2006 - Koshland wins Welch Award
Daniel Koshland has been named the 36th recipient of the international Welch Award in Chemistry for his life-enhancing contributions to biochemistry and medical science. He will receive a gold medallion and $300,000 prize for his achievements. More >

5/15/2006 - New compound thwarts brain cancer
By determining how a class of compounds blocks signaling in cells, QB3 scientists have identified what is perhaps the most potent drug candidate yet against a highly lethal kind of brain tumor. More >

4/28/2006 - QB3 affiliates honored
Nine QB3 faculty affiliates are among those singled out for highest honors by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which recently announced 2006 awardees. More >

4/27/2006 - Artificial compound eye fabricated in lab
Using the eyes of insects such as dragonflies and houseflies as models, a team of bioengineers at UC Berkeley led by Luke Lee has created a series of artificial compound eyes. These eyes may eventually be used as cameras or sensory detectors to capture visual or chemical information from a wider field of vision than previously possible.
More >

4/22/2006 - Exploring common ground
Clinicians and bioengineers explored scientific areas ripe for collaboration at the recent QB3 BioMedical Engineering Symposium held at UCSF's Mission Bay. More >

4/17/2006 - Stuart to receive University of Colorado award
Josh Stuart will be honored May 10 at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He will receive the 2006 Kalpana Chawla Outstanding Recent Graduate Award for his work using large-scale computational approaches to explore how genes function and produce orchestrated cellular responses. More >

4/12/2006 - Detecting cancer earlier
A team of scientists led by chemist Carolyn Bertozzi has developed a chemical profiling technique that has potential for detecting the onset of cancer at the cellular level. The work appears in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). More >

4/12/2006 - Milestone in quest for cheap antimalarial
Researchers striving to create a less expensive version of a life-saving antimalarial drug, artemisinin, have cleared a major hurdle, according to a new report in the journal Nature, by successfully engineering the production of artemisinic acid, one chemical alteration away from artemisinin. More >

4/5/2006 - Jasper Rine named million-dollar professor by HHMI
While most professors designing a new class are lucky to have access to a shared copier and a bit of technical assistance, Jasper Rine has just received a million dollars from HHMI to create a class that will introduce UC Berkeley undergraduates to the modern world of experimental biology. More >

4/3/2006 - Kumar wins Beckman Award
Sanjay Kumar has received a 2006 Beckman Young Investigators Award from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation for his research on engineering cell shape and mechanics in the nervous system. He is the latest in a string of QB3 Beckman Award winners. More >

3/29/2006 - Sensor project receives $1.6 million from NIH
Holger Schmidt, David Deamer, Harry Noller, and other researchers have received $1.6 million from NIH to develop new sensor technology for biomedical applications. The project builds on earlier advances by UCSC researchers in optical and electrical sensing technologies and involves a broad interdisciplinary group of collaborators at UCSC and Brigham Young University. More >

3/27/2006 - Membranous origins of first living cells
Blowing bubbles is child's play, showing how easily soap molecules can assemble into a sheet and curl around to form a bubble. To chemist David Deamer, soap bubble formation illustrates an essential property of the kinds of molecules that compose the membranes of all living cells. He traces the origin of life to microscopic bubblelike membranes. More >

3/21/2006 - Biochemist, PNAS editor Nicholas Cozzarelli has died
Nicholas Robert Cozzarelli, editor-in-chief of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and a QB3 faculty affiliate, died Sunday, March 19, from complications of treatment for Burkitt's lymphoma. He was 67 and died at his home in Berkeley. More >

2/24/2006 - "Virus chip" detects new virus in prostate tumors
UCSF and Cleveland Clinic scientists have discovered a new virus in human prostate tumors. The discovery was made using a DNA -hunting “virus chip” developed by Joe DeRisi and colleagues at his lab. More >

2/09/2006 - Keasling honored at World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum honored 36 hi-tech companies selected as Technology Pioneers for the year 2006. One of these vanguard companies, Amyris Biotechnology, Inc., was represented by Jay Keasling, a company founder and QB3 faculty affiliate.
More >

2/07/2006 - Forcing viruses to evolve to help, not harm
Viruses and humans have evolved together over millions of years in a game of one-upmanship that, often as not, left humans sick or worse. Now David Schaffer has shown that viruses – in this case, a benign one – can be forced to evolve in ways to benefit humans. More >

1/25/2006 - Researchers scrutinize cell’s decision-making circuitry
A UCSF research team has gained a new glimpse into the circuitry that directs the fate of cells: whether they will grow, change shape, or succumb to pathogens. More >