Discoveries

New CRISPR Center brings hope for rare and deadly genetic diseases

January 10, 2024
Jennifer Doudna and colleagues CRISPR collaboration combines expertise from three UC schools to scale treatment for diseases that industry has largely passed by – until now.

Meet our alumni: David Liu

March 29, 2023
Alumnus David Liu

Photo of David Liu via wikipedia. Uncredited.

"We can correct the vast majority of DNA errors that cause genetic diseases"

The Harvard University magazine published almost a couple of decades ago that one of its professors, the chemist...

UC Berkeley Chemists and the Periodic Table

January 9, 2019

The 1969 Discovery 104 Team Dimitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist who in 1869 wrote out the known elements (of which there were 63 at the time) on cards and then arranged them in columns and rows according to their chemical and physical properties is considered the father of the Periodic Table. In celebration of the 150th anniversary of this pivotal moment in science, the UN has proclaimed 2019 the International year of the Periodic Table. Seen here is the element 104 discovery team in 1969.

David Schaffer: Research that takes risks must be supported

August 22, 2022

David Schaffer - UC Berkeley

Bakar Fellows Program Director and UC Berkeley professor David Schaffer reflects on the reasons why he sees Berkeley as a leader in world-changing research, innovation and entrepreneurship. (UC Berkeley photo by Mark Joseph Hanson)

The Berkeley Changemaker is a Berkeley News series highlighting innovative members of the...

Tiny liquid robots never run out of energy as long as they have food

January 3, 2022

Liquid robots

Artist’s rendering of autonomous, continuous “liquid robots” in an animated GIF. (Credit: Jenny Nuss/Berkeley Lab)

When you think of a robot, images of R2-D2 or C-3PO might come to mind. But robots can serve up more than just entertainment on the big screen. In a lab, for example, robotic systems can improve safety and efficiency by performing repetitive tasks...

Exploring the superheavy elements at the end of the periodic table

May 22, 2019

new heavy metals research

The addition of four new elements added to the periodic table in 2016 was only the beginning. Now chemists and physicists are starting the hard work of determining the physicochemical properties of these short-lived and incredibly rare species. And that often involves atom-at-a-time chemistry.

Berkeley startup aims to be a game changer in autoimmune disease therapy

July 22, 2021

chemistry alumni Geo Guillen, left, and Marco Lobba, middle, launched Catena Biosciences with Berkeley chemistry professor Matthew Francis.
UC Berkeley business and chemistry alumni Geo Guillen, left, and Marco Lobba, middle, launched Catena Biosciences with Berkeley...

Scientists Print All-Liquid 3-D Structures

March 29, 2018

3d printed waterAn international group of scientists that includes the Aldo De Benedictis Distinguished Professor of Chemistry Phillip Geissler have developed a way to print 3D constructs using water and oil. Their fascinating findings have been published in...

FDA approves first test of CRISPR to correct genetic defect causing sickle cell disease

March 30, 2021

Sickle cell patients such as Cassandra Trimnell and Evie James Junior and UCSF physician Mark Walters talk about the severe pain experienced by those with the disease and the potential benefits of a CRISPR cure. (Video by UC Berkeley Public Affairs; video of Evie Junior by Colin Weatherby, courtesy UCLA’s Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research)

In 2014, two years after her Nobel Prize-winning invention of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing, Jennifer Doudna thought the technology was mature enough to tackle a cure for a devastating hereditary...