Chemical Biology

Smallest life forms have smallest working CRISPR system

October 18, 2018

Archaea bacteria with CRISPR systems.

An ancient group of microbes that contains some of the smallest life forms on Earth also has the smallest CRISPR gene-editing machinery discovered to date.

Markita Landry receives 2018 DARPA Young Faculty Award

July 18, 2018


Markita LandryAssistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Markita Landry, has been awarded a prestigious two-year DARPA Young Faculty Award for her project Brain Chemical Signaling: A New Input Signal for Brain-Computer Interfaces. Landry’s research lies at the intersection of single-molecule biophysics and nanomaterial-polymer science to develop new tools to probe and characterize complex biological systems.

New DNA Synthesis Method Could Soon Build a Genome in a Day

July 10, 2018

DNA strandA new method from the lab of Jay Keasling promises to revolutionize DNA synthesis with a faster, cheaper, and more accurate approach. Taking inspiration from nature, the team at UC Berkeley cracked a decades-old puzzle that allowed them...

Copper regulates sleep in zebrafish

June 9, 2018


New research on copper could lead to better understanding of role in sleep.New research on copper could lead to better understanding of role in sleep.