Spring 2016 New & Noteworthy

New & Noteworthy

Faculty News

Emeritus Professor Jack Kirsch
Photo: Mark Joseph Hanson
Professor Emeritus Jack Kirsch received a Dickson Emeriti Professorship. Since his formal retirement in 2006, he has continued to research and teach, and has developed a freshman seminar that treats students to local performances in the arts.
Read more...

Professor Eva Nogales
Photo: Mark Joseph Hanson
Professor Eva Nogales was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and she and a group of collaborative researchers recently received substantial HHMI funding for two new cryo-EM facilities at Berkeley and UCSF, which will be available to investigators at UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, UCSF and LBNL.
Read more...

Assistant Professor Hillel Adesnik
Assistant Professor Hillel Adesnik received a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (PECASE) and an American Association of Anatomists (AAA) Young Investigators Award.

Assistant Professor Stephan Lammel
Photo: Mark Joseph Hanson
Assistant Professor Stephan Lammel has been awarded a 2016 Whitehall Foundation Fellowship, which supports young scientists at the beginning of their careers and assists scholarly research in vertebrate and invertebrate neurobiology.

Associate Professor Michelle Chang
Photo: Mark Joseph Hanson
Professor Michelle Chang received the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry in recognition of her contributions to the understanding of enzymatic incorporation of fluorine into natural products.

Professor Jennifer Doudna
Photo: Keegan Houser
Professor Jennifer Doudna joined Joseph Biden at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in January 2016 to speed the discovery of cures for cancer, which President Obama has dubbed a “cancer moonshot.” She was named an Allen Distinguished Investigator, received Canada’s Gairdner Award, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, the Warren Alpert Prize, the Biopolymers Murray Goodman Memorial Prize from the American Chemical Society, and the Human Frontier Science Program Nakasone Award. She was elected as a foreign member of UK’s Royal Society. Read more about the Cancer Moonshot.

Professor Susan Marqusee
Photo: Mark Joseph Hanson
Emeritus Professor Robert Glaeser
Photo: Roy Kaltschmidt
Professor Susan Marqusee and Professor Emeritus Robert Glaeser were elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Glaeser was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Professor Susan Marqusee
Photo: Mark Joseph Hanson
Associate Professor Ahmet Yildiz
Photo: Mark Joseph Hanson
Associate Professor Arash Komeili
 
Director of QB3 and Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology Susan Marqusee and Associate Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology Ahmet Yildiz — as well as MCB affiliate, Associate Professor of Plant and Microbial Biology, Arash Komeili — have received Miller Professorships for 2016-2017. These prestigious awards are “dedicated to the encouragement of creative thought and the conduct of research and investigation in the field of pure science.”

In Memoriam

Emeritus Professor Walter J. Freeman III
Photo: Bruce Cook
Professor Emeritus of Neurobiology Walter J. Freeman III passed away at age 89 in Berkeley on Sunday, April 24. A UC Berkeley professor for 57 years, he is considered one of the founders of the field of computational neuroscience. Combining brain dynamics and chaos theory, Professor Freeman was known for his pioneering work on how the brain generates our perception of the world. Over his lifetime, he published nearly 500 research articles and several books.
Read more...

Emeritus Professor R. David Cole
Photo: M. Bradley Elliott
On March 13, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry R. David Cole passed away at age 91 in Santa Barbara. A professor at UC Berkeley for 36 years, he retired as assistant dean in the College of Letters and Science in 1992. He researched the structure and function of proteins — hormones, enzymes, cytoskeletal proteins, and especially chromosomal proteins. In 1992 he was awarded the prestigious Berkeley Citation.
Read more...



Assistant Professor Xavier Darzacq
Photo: Mark Joseph Hanson
Assistant Professor Xavier Darzacq was a recipient of a California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) Award. He is also leading the Berkeley component of a large, collaborative initiative to better understand gene regulation. Darzacq and his collaborators received a five-year grant from the NIH.

Assistant Professor Hernan Garcia
Photo: Mark Joseph Hanson
Assistant Professor Hernan Garcia received a 2016 Sloan Fellowship to study chemical signals that orchestrate the development of a single cell into a multicellular organism, and was named a 2016 Searle Scholar.

Assistant Professor Gloria Brar
Photo: Mark Joseph Hanson
Assistant Professor Gloria Brar has received a 2016 Sloan Fellowship for her work studying the genes that regulate meiosis.

Professor Jeff Cox
Photo: Mark Joseph Hanson
Professor Jeffery Cox has received a 2015 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award for his project “Host-Directed Strategies to Create Synergistic Antibacterial Therapies.”

Assistant Professor Evan Miller
Photo: Mark Joseph Hanson
Assistant Professor Evan Miller is a 2016 recipient of the Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award from the March of Dimes, a New Investigator Research Grant from the Alzheimer’s Association, and a 2016 Sloan Fellowship.

Professor Jasper Rine
Photo: Mark Joseph Hanson
Professor Jasper Rine was elected to the National Academy of Inventors for his contributions in the field of gene regulation.

Assistant Roberto Zoncu
Assistant Professor Roberto Zoncu has been named one of seven winners of the 2016 Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award for early-career scientists doing novel research into cancer.

Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Scholar News

The Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor (OGSI) Awards:

Across campus, this award annually honors more than 200 UC Berkeley GSIs for their outstanding work in the teaching of undergraduates. In MCB, the honors went to:

Outstanding Graduate Student Instructors 2016
Left to right: Rachel Kjolby, Harland Lab; Alexandra Seletsky, Doudna Lab; Ryan Morrie, Feller Lab; Shion Lim, Marqusee Lab; Benjamin LaFrance, Nogales Lab; Amy Strom, Karpen Lab; Emma Carroll, Marqusee Lab; Alison Stanbery, Barton Lab.

Graduate Student James Nunez
James Nunez, a graduate student in MCB Professor Jennifer Doudna’s lab, received the prestigious Weintraub Graduate Student Award.

Postdoc Niranjan Srinivas
Niranjan Srinivas, a postdoctoral researcher in MCB Assistant Professor Hernan Garcia’s lab, received a fellowship from the Damon-Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.

Postdoc Joseph Graham
Joseph Graham, a postdoctoral researcher in MCB Professor Matthew Welch’s lab, received a University of California President’s Postdoctoral and a Ford Foundation Fellowship.

Postdoc Polina Kosillo
Polina Kosillo, a postdoctoral researcher in MCB Assistant Professor Helen Bateup’s lab, received the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance Postdoctoral Fellowship Award.


Back to Main Spring 2016 Newsletter Page