MBIB News

Heinz Frei, a senior scientist in Biosciences’ Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division, seeks to engineer devices that emulate photosynthesis – the sunlight-driven chemical reaction that green plants and algae use to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into cellular fuel. If the necessary technology could be refined past theoretical models and lab-scale prototypes, this idea, known as artificial photosynthesis, has the potential to generate large sources of completely renewable energy using the surplus CO2 in our atmosphere.

UC Berkeley researchers have created a new technique that can rapidly “print” two-dimensional arrays of cells and proteins that mimic a wide variety of cellular environments in the body. The technique could help scientists better understand the complex cell-to-cell messaging that dictates a cell’s final fate. David Schaffer, a faculty scientist in Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB), as well as a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UC Berkeley, is co-senior author on the paper describing the work published in Science Advances.

New research by Paul Williams, staff scientist in the Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging Division, suggests that our intake of coffee is affected by a positive feedback loop between genetics and the environment. This phenomenon, known as “quantile-specific heritability,” is also associated with cholesterol levels and body weight, and is thought to play a role in other human physiological and behavioral traits that defy simple explanation.

The projects of 14 Biosciences Area scientists and engineers received funding through the FY20 Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program. The funded projects span a diverse array of topics and approaches including: developing closed-loop plastics from biogenic feedstocks; reimagining a root system optimized for plant-microbe interactions; and creating computational tools for extracting macromolecular conformational dynamics. Lab-wide, 96 projects were selected from a field of 168 proposals. Biosciences Area efforts account for 18.5 percent of the $23 million allocated.

Stephen Brohawn, affiliate faculty in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Division, is one of four Berkeley Lab scientists who have been selected for the prestigious 2020 Sloan Research Fellowship. In recognition of their outstanding work in science, the winners receive a two-year, $75,000 fellowship, which can be spent to advance their work. A UC Berkeley assistant professor of molecular and cell biology, Brohawn studies life’s electrical system, which is responsible for sensation, thought, learning, memory and many other forms of communication within the body, from a molecular and biophysical perspective.

The other winners from the Lab are also assistant professors at UC Berkeley: Heather Gray, physics; Daniel Stolper, earth and planetary science; and Michael Zaletel, physics. For more information, read the Berkeley Lab Update.