January 2019 – July 2022
Jennifer Doudna has received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her co-discovery of the CRISPR gene-editing tool. Her attention was first drawn to CRISPR by colleague Jillian Banfield, and in 2008 Doudna’s nascent research on CRISPR was funded by a Berkeley Lab LDRD award. https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2020/10/07/doudna-wins-nobel-prize-chemistry/
A Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) provides unique challenges to the Lab’s scientific community. We talked with two of the area Mission Support Officers who went through the experience last year and have been preparing for more this season. Asmita Patel shares how teamwork is the key. https://stratcomm-elements.lbl.gov/2020/09/28/3-questions-for-asmita-patel/
Ahead of the possibility of planned power shutoffs by PG&E, we talked with two of the Mission Support Officers who went through the PSPS experience last year and have been preparing for more this year. First up is Bioscience’s Nikki Humphreys. https://stratcomm-elements.lbl.gov/2020/09/28/three-questions-for-nikki-humphreys/
The Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s initiative has awarded James Hurley — a faculty scientist in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Division — $7 million over three years to investigate the role of damaged mitochondria in the disease. https://biosciences.lbl.gov/2020/09/18/james-hurley-awarded-7m-to-study-role-of-mitophagy-in-parkinsons-disease/
Three Lifetime Achievement awards and 34 employees in nine award categories will be celebrated Thursday, Nov. 12, at 3:30 p.m. at the 9th annual Director’s Awards, the top honor bestowed on Lab employees for excellence. See this year’s honorees and look for future articles on their accomplishments. https://recognition.lbl.gov/2020-laureates/
Boubacar Kanté (Materials Sciences) has been selected as a 2020 Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Inventor Fellow. The fellowship supports researchers who create new tools and technologies with a high potential to accelerate scientific discovery, environmental conservation, and patient care. https://engineering.berkeley.edu/news/2020/09/boubacar-kante-selected-among-2020-cohort-of-moore-inventor-fellows/
Shuttle driver Baltazar Sanchez is a self-described homebody who migrated from his birthplace in Mexico to Portland, Ore. in the ’90s. Baltazar came to the Bay Area in 2016 and began driving at the Lab in 2017. In his free time, he is still on the road riding his motor scooter. https://stratcomm-elements.lbl.gov/2020/09/03/three-questions-for-shuttle-driver-baltazar-sanchez/
Jonelle Basso of the Joint Genome Institute won the People’s Choice award at last week’s Research SLAM. She researches the interactions between plants and microbes and works to optimize plant root colonization by microbiota of interest. Watch Jonelle’s SLAM presentation to find out more. https://slam.lbl.gov/2020-slam/2020-slam-finalists/jonelle-basso
Shuttle Operations Manager Broyce Batchan is a busy man. The former University of Montana football player is a volunteer youth basketball coach for the East Bay Soldiers AAU club. He coaches his 16-year-old son, and his wife is a hip-hop and neo-soul performer. Learn more about Broyce in this 3Q4. https://stratcomm-elements.lbl.gov/2020/08/13/three-questions-for-shuttle-operations-manager-broyce-batchan/
Nihar Shah (right) and Won Young Park of the Energy Technologies Area recently received awards from the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program. They were honored for their work on improving the energy efficiency of cooling systems and evaluating the benefits of those improvements. https://energyanalysis.lbl.gov/news/article/berkeley-lab-researchers-receive