The DNA-cutting proteins central to CRISPR-Cas9 and related gene-editing tools originally came from bacteria, but a newfound variety of Cas proteins apparently evolved in viruses that infect bacteria. The new Cas proteins were found in the largest known bacteria-infecting viruses, called bacteriophages, and are the most compact working Cas variants yet discovered — half the size of today’s workhorse, Cas9.
The University of California, Berkeley has joined forces with pharmaceutical giant Novartis to establish a new research collaboration aimed at unlocking difficult drug targets to accelerate the discovery of new medicines in areas such as infectious diseases and cancer.
In the modern age of pharmacology, some of the newest heroes in the war against human disease are biologists and chemists working in chemical proteomics. Among the leaders in this research is the Novartis-Berkeley Center for Proteomics and Chemistry Technologies (NB-CPACT), a joint venture linking Novartis, a large pharmaceutical company, and the world’s leading public research university. Launched in October 2017, the center is developing new technologies to further the discovery of next-generation therapeutics for cancer and other diseases.
Even the hippest chemist doesn’t know how many potentially world-changing chemistry start-ups are out there. As we at C&EN present our fifth class of 10 Start-Ups to Watch, we...
Rebecca Abergel (Ph.D. '06, Chem) leads the BioActinide Chemistry Group in Berkeley Lab’s Chemical Sciences Division. (Credit: Marilyn Chung/Berkeley...
Researchers in the UC Berkeley lab of John Kuriyan have utilized powerful NSF funded supercomputers at the University of Texas Advanced Computing Center and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center to uncover the mechanism that activates cell mutations found in about 50 percent of melanomas.
The University of California, Berkeley has joined forces with pharmaceutical giant Novartis to establish a new research collaboration aimed at unlocking difficult drug targets to accelerate the discovery of new medicines in areas such as infectious diseases and cancer.
