Research News

Many adults seek genetic counseling, or opt to send samples of their saliva to companies like 23andMe, to find out if the specific patterns in their DNA may put them at higher risk for developing disease. But many doctors and scientists — including National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins — have predicted that, one day, genetic screening will be a routine health check performed on all newborn babies.

Artificial molecules could one day form the information unit of a new type of computer or be the basis for programmable substances. The information would be encoded in the spatial arrangement of the individual atoms – similar to how the sequence of base pairs determines the information content of DNA, or sequences of zeros and ones form the memory of computers.

The racial justice and environmental justice movements have functioned independently for far too long, according to three UC Berkeley scholars. 

The dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in our Solar System’s main asteroid belt, once harbored a global subsurface ocean that likely froze solid long ago. Today, if any liquid water — a key requisite for habitability — still exists on Ceres, a good place to look for it is beneath the youngest of its large impact craters.

The Simons Foundation has ensured a second decade of research and innovation for the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, based at UC Berkeley, through a $35.5 million grant. The grant, which will begin in 2022, after the conclusion of the Simons Institute's first 10 years, will support the Simons Institute's mission and activities through June 2032.

A new research center funded by the National Science Foundation aims to advance methods for storing and preserving biological cells and tissues, work that could benefit biomedical research and dramatically expand organ transplant networks.

When we dream, our brains are filled with noisy electrical activity that looks nearly identical to that of the awake brain. But UC Berkeley researchers have pulled a signal out of the noise that uniquely defines dreaming, or REM sleep, potentially making it easier to monitor people with sleep disorders, as well as unconscious coma patients or those under anesthesia.

As the fall school semester is nearly underway, discussions are intensifying on whether, and how, to reopen schools amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. A new study, led by researchers at UC Berkeley, finds that in-person classes in the Bay Area may be possible for elementary schools, but only if schools can successfully limit contact between students from different classes. In contrast, remote learning may be the only safe option for middle and high schools until community transmission is dramatically lowered.

More than three of every four Californians say that the COVID-19 pandemic poses a threat to their health and their finances, but the risks are felt far more acutely by people of color, according to a new poll from UC Berkeley’s Institute for Governmental Studies (IGS).

Sheltering in place this spring from the coronavirus, UC Berkeley alumna Pearlé Nwaezeigwe missed her family in Nigeria and said she “felt locked up, all alone” in her Oakland apartment. She turned to social media to engage with the world, but it left her helpless and unhappy.

As climate change heats up the weather in Southern California, coastal populations from San Diego to Santa Barbara may face an increased risk of contracting West Nile virus and other mosquito-borne diseases, suggests a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

As the United States struggles with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread protests against racism, President Donald Trump’s support among California voters is eroding even in conservative areas of the state, according to a new poll from UC Berkeley’s Institute for Governmental Studies (IGS).

Rising temperatures driven by climate change could cause tens of millions of deaths per year worldwide by the end of the century, potentially matching the global death rate for all infectious diseases combined, according to a new UC Berkeley study.

Children who receive sustained treatment against common parasitic infections grow up to achieve a higher standard of living, with long-lasting health and economic benefits extending to their communities, according to new findings from a research team led by a University of California, Berkeley, economist.

Under the pressure of a global health crisis, the argument for open access has sunk in. Following calls from the World Health Organization and government leaders, over 150 publishers, companies, and research institutions have agreed to temporarily make all content related to COVID-19 free to read, ensuring efforts to understand the virus can go forth undeterred.

CRISPR-Cas9 has become the go-to genome editor for both basic research and gene therapy. But CRISPR-Cas9 also has spawned other potentially powerful DNA manipulation tools that could help fix genetic mutations responsible for hereditary diseases. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have now obtained the first 3D structure of one of the most promising of these tools: base editors, which bind to DNA and, instead of cutting, precisely replace one nucleotide with another.