Recent News

• 

  Stealth Genetic Switch in Mosquitoes Halts Malaria Spread

  Novel system uses CRISPR to replace one molecule and block parasites that cause malaria infection

  Researchers have developed a system that blocks malaria transmission in mosquitoes, which continue to be the deadliest animals on Earth. The CRISPR-based gene-editing system changes a single molecule within mosquitoes, a tiny but effective change that stops the malaria-parasite transmission process.

• 

  Don’t Feed the Animals: Researchers Warn of Risks Tied to Wildlife Interactions

  Food provisioning for wild animals can lead to dangerous outcomes, a new study on tourist-elephant encounters shows

  A study led by a UC San Diego scientist offers new warnings on the dangers of human interactions with wildlife. The new report, which focuses on elephants, indicates that human feeding of wild animals can lead to a range of problems and even result in the deaths of humans and animals.

• 

  BioSci faculty members selected as new Hellman Fellows

  Crucial funding for junior faculty members awarded in 2025-26 year

  School of Biological Sciences faculty members Vineet Augustine, Scott Biering, Alex Chaim, Vu Nguyen and Noah Rose have been selected as 2025-2026 Hellman Fellows. They are part of the largest cohort in the UC San Diego program's history.

• 

  Neurobiology’s Terrence Sejnowski Elected to Royal Society and American Philosophical Society

  Distinguished Professor Terrence Sejnowski, a pioneer in computational neuroscience who leads groundbreaking research on AI, has been selected to join two of the most prominent societies in the world: the Royal Society and the American Philosophical Society.

• 

  Voracious Honey Bees Threaten the Food Supply of Native Pollinators

  Researchers raise concern of native species being outcompeted by non-native honey bees, which were found to extract nearly 80 percent of available pollen in a day at a key hotspot of bee biodiversity

  A study led by UC San Diego biologists is calling attention to the availability of food for bees in the Southwestern U.S. Non-native honey bees, the study found, extract an overwhelming majority of pollen from regional flowers, posing a significant ecological threat to native bee species.

• 

  Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind Introduces 2025-2026 Postdoctoral Scholars

  The Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind (KIBM) at UC San Diego has announced its fourth cohort of postdoctoral scholars. KIBM cultivates programs and research that increases our understanding of the origins, development, evolution and mechanisms of the brain and mind.

• 

  How Do We Reach Decisions? Researchers Pioneer AI Method to Uncover Cognitive Strategies

  New study deploys small neural networks in revealing how and why people make the decisions they make

  How do humans and animals make decisions? Researchers deployed AI in innovative ways to understand this process. By using tiny artificial neural networks, the researchers’ work illuminates in detail what drives an individual’s actual choices — regardless of whether those choices are optimal or not.

• 

  Living Materials Now Easier to Build with a Larger Palette of Ingredients

  Sustainable materials—powered by sunlight and living microbes—that remove pollutants from water, release oxygen into a wound or heal themselves after damage could become simpler to create thanks to new research by a team of biologists and engineers at UC San Diego.

• 

  Neurobiology’s Matthew Lovett-Barron Selected for Prestigious 2025 McKnight Scholar Award

  UC San Diego Assistant Professor Matthew Lovett-Barron has been selected to receive a 2025 McKnight Scholar Award, one of the most prestigious awards for junior neuroscience faculty members.

• 

  Molecule Linked to Metabolism Found to Boost Plant Growth

  Largely unexplored in plants, “itaconate” stimulates seedling development, offering a path to enhancing valuable food crops

  Researchers have completed the first comprehensive exploration of itaconate, a natural compound involved in metabolism, in plants. The researchers found that itaconate helps plants grow, a finding that offers new possibilities for maximizing crop growth to support growing global populations.

To read more about the School of Biological Sciences happenings, see the News Archives.