URAP

Greg Barton - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Our immune systems have evolved to balance defense against foreign pathogens with the capacity to damage normal “self” tissues. B cell and antibody function are central to this balance: in nearly all vertebrates, each among billions of B cells co-expresses 1) a highly variable B cell antigen receptor (BCR...

David Bilder - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Malignant tumors are distinct from benign growths in their ability to hijack and disrupt various processes in the body. Some common examples that most people are familiar with are tumor invasion of adjacent tissues, recruitment vasculature to accelerate growth, and dissemination of metastasizing cells. However, a less well-appreciated fact...

Yang Dan - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Sleep problems are a common symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and in some cases an early warning sign before movement deficits. Sleep problems in PD are diverse and can be made worse by medications that treat other PD symptoms by affecting dopamine levels in the brain. While dopamine-releasing neurons...

Hernan Garcia - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Ultimately, in the developing embryo, cells make decisions individually based on local context. Individual cells don’t have access to the morphogen concentrations across the entire embryo. They can only be affected by the concentration of proteins in neighboring nuclei, and their individual response to signaling is crucial for developmental decision...

Hernan Garcia - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Gene expression is noisy. How much of this noise is due to variations in the environment of a gene locus, and how much is due to intrinsic limitations of the transcriptional machinery? This project aims to explore these questions by measuring the transcriptional dynamics of two identical, spatially coupled reporter...

Hernan Garcia - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

A stochastic oscillator undergoes rhythmic motion but is governed by random fluctuations. One such example from the natural world is an oscillatory gene regulatory network known as the segmentation clock, which coordinates the formation of somites in vertebrates. Recent advances in our lab have allowed us to measure real-time...

Scott Geller - Research Scientist, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Located in Barker Hall, our core scientific support unit provides critical DNA sequencing and analysis support to the UC Berkeley molecular biology community. In addition to daily Sanger and Nanopore sequencing, we provide specialized services such as plasmid preparation, PCR clean-up, and human cell line authentication. To expand our...

Richard Harland - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The focus of the lab is to understand development; that is, the molecular mechanisms that orchestrate how a single cell (the egg) transforms into an adult animal with a multitude of functioning organs, following a specific body plan. The first milestone in the establishment of the body plan is to...

Richard Harland - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Sleep has been shown to be crucial to animal life. Moreover, sleep deprivation during the development of the fetus leads to emotional and cognitive effects in the offspring later in life. Unfortunately, the mechanism behind these behaviors are not defined due to the technical and ethical impediments related to human...

Richard Harland - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

We will isolate DNAs encoding cytoskeletal regulators, describe their expression, and knock-out or add back functions to determine whether they are active in controlling cell behaviors. Background. Amphibian embryos have been valuable models to examine the behaviors of cells that contribute to the shape changes of the embryo. The...

Richard Harland - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Though sleep is pervasive across animals, the core function of this deeply conserved behavior remains unknown. Sleep has been hypothesized to serve many roles, from the replenishing of molecules consumed during periods of activity, to the facilitation of learning and the formation of long term memories. Recently, colleagues and I...

Lin He - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The earliest step of mammalian development from a fertilized egg to a complex organism is the preimplantation development. During this stage, a fertilized zygote develops into a 100-cell blastocyst in 3.5 days in mice (or 5–6 days in humans). In this short window, the embryo undergoes remarkable changes...

Lin He - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Female reproductive capacity declines with age as the ovarian reserve—the finite pool of follicles containing oocytes—is gradually depleted. This decline begins earlier than many other age-related physiological changes and eventually culminates in menopause. In some women, premature loss of ovarian function results in primary ovarian insufficiency (POI...

Lin He - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Transposable elements (TEs) are DNA sequences capable of “moving” (transpose) within a genome. RNA transposons (retrotransposon) use RNA intermediate and a “copy and paste” mechanism to transpose. Retrotransposons, with their “copy and paste” mechanism, have accumulated and become abundant in our genome, comprising ~38% of the human and mouse genome...

Lin He - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Throughout evolution, ancient foreign nucleic acid sequences have infected and spread across the genomes of nearly all organisms. Approximately 40% of the mammalian genome originates from mobile elements known as retrotransposons, which hijack the host's cellular machinery to replicate and integrate into the host genome via RNA intermediates. In most...

Craig Miller - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

A fantastic diversity in organismal form is seen in nature, yet we know little about the genetic basis of evolutionary change. We are using the head skeleton of the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) as a model system to study the genetic basis of development and evolution. Sticklebacks have undergone one...

Eva Nogales - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Retrons are bacterial immune systems that help protect cells from viral infection. Many retrons remain poorly characterized, particularly those found in clinically important bacteria. This project will investigate a newly identified retron system from an ESKAPE pathogen using biochemical and structural approaches. The long-term goal is to understand how...

Eva Nogales - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Kinesin motors drive microtubule based intracellular transport, and autoinhibition is an intrinsic regulatory mechanism that ensures this transport is activated according to cellular needs. Aberrant activation of kinesins has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., KIF1A-Associated Neurological Disorder), affecting neuronal morphology and neurotransmitter release. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying...

Eva Nogales - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Glial cells (astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and microglia), which make up half the brain volume, play essential roles in maintaining and protecting neurons. They regulate synaptic neurotransmission, insulate the neuronal axons, maintain their extracellular environment and are involved in immune defense, thereby playing a central role in the regulation of brain function...

Carolina Reisenman - Associate Researcher, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Plants produce many toxic compounds as defense against insect herbivory. Many insects have therefore developed adaptations to counteract the negative effects of toxic compounds. Indeed, some species evolved mechanisms that allow them to use these toxic hosts as private niches, avoiding competition with other insects. In this project the student...

Ian Swinburne - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Compartmentalized fluid pressures organize many aspects of development and physiology. Because water is incompressible, pressure changes propagate rapidly and uniformly (Pascal’s law), coordinating collective cell behaviors. In the eye, fluid pressure plays an important role in producing and maintaining shape for vision. The anterior chamber (AC) of the eye is...

Ian Swinburne - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Mechanical stress is a fact of life. Fluid pressure is required for the function of the circulatory system, ear, and eye. Tissues stretch and contract during morphogenesis, locomotion, and wound healing. But how do tissues (and the cells that constitute them) adapt and respond to changes in the physical stresses...

Ian Swinburne - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The vertebrate inner ear is composed of a series of connected fluid-filled cavities tightly regulated by undefined pressure-responsive mechanisms. Misregulation of this internal hydrostatic (fluid) pressure can result in developmental defects in the ear, hearing loss, and difficulties with balance. The endolymphatic sac (EDS) is a flexible chamber...

Ian Swinburne - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Check back for status     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Most life processes involve cells managing fluids. Our sense of hearing and balance depend on the tight regulation of inner ear fluid (endolymph) volume and pressure. Increased endolymph volume and pressure can lead to the development of deafness and balance disorders. Our previous work in zebrafish embryos has shown that...

Robert Tjian - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Regulation of DNA transcription is one of the mechanisms at the core of cellular identity establishment and maintenance. Our lab is interested in studying the proteins that operate such regulation, transcription factors (TFs). The student will participate in a project that aims to assess the nuclear dynamics of developmentally-related...

Marta Truchado- Garcia - Project Scientist, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Despite dramatically different body architectures, animals share common signaling pathways and transcriptional networks that regulate their development, a core “genetic toolkit.” Asymmetries are essential for proper organization and function of organ systems, and we aim to examine the toolkit that underlies left-right asymmetry (LRA) in different animal groups. Genetic...

Marta Truchado- Garcia - Project Scientist, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Ctenophores (from Greek, meaning "comb-bearing") are gelatinous marine invertebrates that might be mistaken for medusae. However, they can be easily identified by their eight longitudinal 'comb rows' of ciliary bundles, which are used for locomotion. Like cnidarians, ctenophores possess multiple nerve nets; however, they exhibit several unique features that...