Michael Botchan

UC Berkeley’s Biology Scholars Program primarily aims to help underrepresented students looking to forge a career in STEM. Guaranteed funding of the program is expected to end after the summer of 2022, leaving the future of the program unknown.

This fall, students at UC Berkeley will be able to apply to the new Biology + Business program, which allows undergraduate students to receive concurrent bachelor’s degrees in business administration and molecular and cell biology.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, or CZI, announced Tuesday that it will award more than $6.9 million to fund programs at UC Berkeley and UC San Diego supporting underrepresented students in STEM fields.

Campus molecular biology and biochemistry professor Jennifer Doudna was awarded the 2018 Kavli Prize in nanoscience for her role in discovering CRISPR, a revolutionary gene-editing technology, in a gala hosted by Norwegian King Harald V on Tuesday.

Michael Botchan has recently been appointed as permanent dean of the Division of Biological Sciences in the College of Letters and Sciences, according to a campus press release.

A team of UC Berkeley researchers announced Monday new findings on the functions the genome editing technology, CRISPR, as well as potential for a related RNA-cutting enzyme.

Howard Schachman, a biochemist and professor in the graduate school of molecular and cellular biology who is remembered for his social activism, sense of humor and contributions to the field of biochemistry, died from complications of pneumonia Aug. 5 in Oakland. He was 97 years old.

G. Steven Martin will retire this June after five years of collaboration with academic leadership on campus as the Dean of the Division of Biological Sciences of the College of Letters and Science.

Disagreement persists between scientists at UC Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology over the disputed patent rights to a gene-editing technology known as CRISPR-Cas9 potentially worth billions of dollars.

On March 19, researchers led by campus professor of chemistry and molecular and cell biology Jennifer Doudna published an article in an online version of the journal Science advocating open discourse regarding the use of technology that can manipulate the human genome.