Innovation & Entrepreneurship News

The University of California announced today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted U.S. Patent Number 10,113,167, covering unique RNA guides that, when combined with the Cas9 protein, are effective at homing in on and editing genes.

The technique could help doctors prescribe the right antibiotics fast.

Two young faculty members — assistant professors Ke Xu of chemistry and Denis Titov of molecular and cell biology — were among 89 recipients of “high-risk, high-reward” grants announced last week by the National Institutes of Health.

The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a nonprofit medical research organization, announced that it is awarding $13.7 million over three years to support cutting-edge biomedical research from seven teams of scientists, physicians and engineers, with faculty members from UC Berkeley, UCSF and Stanford.

SkyDeck, UC Berkeley's accelerator and incubator, is accelerating its own growth. A new venture fund enables SkyDeck to invest $100,000 in the companies in its accelerator, and its accepting a broader and more global range of entrepreneurs, tripling its adviser group and doubling its office size.

Five UC Berkeley faculty innovators have been selected for the Bakar Fellows Program, which supports faculty working to apply scientific discoveries to real-world issues in the fields of engineering, computer science, chemistry and biological and physical sciences.

More than 1,500 abandoned parcels of land lie scattered throughout San Francisco, from unused alleys to vacant parking lots and public easements. The combined area rivals the size of Golden Gate Park.  By integrating the potent tools of digital mapping with digital design technology used in architecture and engineering, Nicholas de Monchaux has created a new way to envision these many unused and underused sites together.

Lin He’s lab uses CRISPR technology to study how different genetic elements in a mouse embryo’s cell nucleus – genes that encode proteins, functional RNAs, and repetitive sequences – interact to assure normal development or trigger cancer.

Jamie Cate is studying stains of yeast that can handle industrial conditions to create a new platform organism for new biofuels and a range of industrial chemicals.

Your cell phone can already find your car and tell you what song the restaurant is playing.  How about an app to screen for eye disease? By coupling the sophisticated imaging capabilities of smart phone cameras with lenses and software for examining the retina, Daniel Fletcher and his students have developed a hand-held, user-friendly version of the optometrist’s ophthalmoscope and are teaming up with clinical collaborators to detect retinal disease caused by diabetes. 

When a car seat heats up on a hot day, it just gets.... hot.  But some materials become totally transformed by the sun’s heat. They undergo a kind of Jekyll and Hyde reversal called a phase change. They turn from insulators to metals. Junqiao Wu is exploiting the most remarkable of these compounds, called vanadium dioxide, to devise ways to cool buildings, winter-proof car engines, and even create novel sunglasses.

Lower back pain is not as common as the common cold. But it’s close. About 80 percent of people suffer back pain sooner or later.