MBIB News

Seeking to develop a direct inhibitor of a mutant protein caused by errors in the KRAS gene, researchers at Amgen conducted X-ray crystallography of KRAS(G12C) proteins using the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology (BCSB) beamlines at the Advanced Light Source (ALS). The high-resolution structural maps generated from the data acquired revealed a small pocket on the molecule. Now, an investigational cancer drug that binds in this pocket will be evaluated in phase 2 clinical trials.

Berkeley Lab scientists have demonstrated for the first time that cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM), a Nobel Prize-winning technique originally designed to image proteins in solution, can be adapted to image atomic changes in a synthetic soft material.

Two scientists from the Biosciences Area, Cheryl Kerfeld and David Schaffer, have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). They join fellow Lab scientists Rebecca Abergel in the Chemical Sciences Division, Roland Burgmann and Michael Manga in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Energy Geosciences Division, and Natalie Roe, Director of the Physics Division, in receiving the distinction of Fellow this year for “their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.”

Amy Herr has received the 2019 Faculty Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring at UC Berkeley. The award from the Visiting Scholar and Postdoc Affairs Program recognizes the critical role mentoring plays in growing recent PhDs into leaders in academia and industry. Herr is a professor of bioengineering at UC Berkeley and a Berkeley Lab Biosciences Area faculty engineer with a primary appointment in Biological Systems and Engineering (BSE) and a secondary appointment in Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB). She was selected from an esteemed group of UC Berkeley faculty by a committee of the Berkeley Postdoctoral Association.

Faculty scientist Jennifer Doudna was recently honored by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, which awarded her the 2019 Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest, and by the Microbiology Society, which bestowed its 2019 Prize Medal on her.