UC Berkeley announced today that it is hiring Michael Ward, M.D., Ph.D., to be the inaugural Schekman Family Chancellor's Chair in Neuroscience. Ward will join the faculty on July 1 with a joint appointment in the Department of Neuroscience and the Division of Molecular Therapeutics in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology. He will also become a member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and an investigator at the Innovative Genomics Institute.
Ward comes to Berkeley from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health,...
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced on September 17 that it had completed a phase 3 trial for a drug to treat fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP). FOP is a severe, ultra-rare genetic disorder that forms bone in connective tissues, which may significantly restrict mobility and result in an early death. Regeneron’s trial medicine reduced new bone lesions in FOP patients by over 90 percent.
When Professor Gül Dölen joined UC Berkeley’s neuroscience and psychology departments in January 2024, the influential scientist got to work designing her new lab and office. Now, after an extensive renovation, Dölen can finally reveal the results, complete with dinosaur brain replicas, a wall-to-wall bookshelf, colorful floor tiles, trippy Beatles posters, and all manner of octopus paraphernalia.
Michael Silver wants to know what your brain looks like on psychedelics.
From Timothy Leary to Michael Pollan, countless psychologists, journalists and cultural leaders have documented the profound impact psychedelics can have on the human mind. And long before these substances became popularized in Western society, psychoactive plants were a key component in many Indigenous healing practices.
But underneath these mental states is a physical organ — the brain — composed of a tangled web of...
Last summer, UC Berkeley hired not one but two computational neuroscientists, Liberty Hamilton and Alex Huth, who study how the brain processes language. The pair has a lot more in common. Both received their Ph.D. at Berkeley before teaching at the University of Texas at Austin. Both now have joint appointments in the neuroscience and statistics departments. They’re also married.
Bats carry many of the world’s most virulent human viruses: rabies, Ebola, Marburg, Nipah, and Hendra. In the wake of COVID-19 (and its bat-borne virus, SARS-CoV-2), scientists are searching for why these viruses manifest so dangerously in humans.
Phillip Cleves is looking forward to finishing his lab’s renovations in February so he can finally invite his fellow professors over to enjoy cold liquid running straight from the tap: fresh, artificial seawater.
Crews are currently installing pipes in Koshland Hall to service the six 200-gallon coral tanks and 600 anemone racks that will occupy his new lab. All told, Cleves will be able to create 1,000 gallons of...
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...
Mike Boots is the chair of UC Berkeley’s Department of Integrative Biology. He focuses on the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, but that can lead to a remarkably diverse range of research topics. His lab has published papers on poxvirus in squirrels, varroa mites in honeybees, tuberculosis in badgers, and malaria in birds.
Boots has a background in entomology and mathematical biology, which informs his disease modeling efforts for mosquitos and honeybees. Of course, each of these studies have ramifications for human health in addition to species conservation.
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.
