Biosciences Area

Jennifer Doudna Shares 2018 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience for CRISPR-Cas9

The Kavli Prize in Nanoscience, given every other year by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the Kavli Foundation, was awarded this year to Jennifer Doudna, a faculty biochemist in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division, and two colleagues who developed the powerful nanoscale tool CRISPR-Cas9 to edit DNA. The $1 million award, announced May 31, will be shared by Doudna, an HHMI investigator and professor of molecular and cell biology and of chemistry at UC Berkeley, Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Society, and Virginijus Šikšnys of the Institute of Applied Enzymology in Vilnius, Lithuania. The 2018 Kavli Prizes will be awarded on September 4 in Oslo, Norway. “This prize recognizes the profound value of curiosity-driven research, and represents the contributions of our lab members. It’s an honor to share The Kavli Prize with my colleagues,” Doudna said. Read the UC Berkeley news release.

Banfield Elected to the Royal Society

Jillian Banfield, faculty scientist in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area with a secondary appointment in the Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division, has been elected as a Fellow to the Royal Society. She is among fifty scientists who were selected for this honor in recognition of their exceptional contributions to science. Banfield, who is also a professor at UC Berkeley, studies the structure, functioning and diversity of microbial communities in natural environments and the human microbiome. Read more in the Royal Society press release.

Biosciences Researchers Honored by the National Academy of Sciences

Three scientists affiliated with the Biosciences Area have been recognized by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), one as the recipient of an NAS award and two as newly elected members. On Sunday, the NAS formally presented its 2018 NAS Award in Chemical Sciences to Jennifer Doudna, a faculty biochemist in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division. Judith Campisi, a biochemist affiliated with Biological Systems and Engineering Division, Ehud “Udi” Isacoff, an MBIB faculty biologist, are among the group of 84 new members elected to the NAS.

Chan Zuckerberg Institute Funds Projects in Support of Human Cell Atlas

Two proposals, from Biosciences Area researchers Cynthia McMurray and Carolyn Larabell, have been recommended for funding by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) through a new grant program focused on developing collaborative computational tools to support the Human Cell Atlas (HCA). A global endeavor governed by an organizing committee co-chaired by Aviv Regev at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Sarah Teichmann at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, the HCA will generate a variety of molecular and imaging data across a range of modalities and spatial scales. To advance the analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of these data, the CZI issued an open call in July 2017 for proposals aimed at creating new computational tools, algorithms, visualizations, and benchmark datasets. After a thorough evaluation process, CZI recommended 85 projects (out of nearly 300 submissions) 
for funding, and will provide $15 million in total over one year for their execution.

Marqusee Recipient of Protein Society Award

Susan Marqusee, faculty scientist in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Division, will receive the Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Award, sponsored by Genentech, which is granted in recognition of exceptional contributions in protein science that profoundly influence our understanding of biology. Marqusee, a biophysical chemist whose work focuses on protein folding and dynamics, is one of the world’s top experimental scientists in the field of protein folding.

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