Fall 2026 Seminar Series
Wednesdays, 12:00 -1:00 PM
290 Hearst Memorial Mining Building
Join us for our next Bioengineering Department Seminar
Wednesday, October 28
12:00 – 1:00 pm
290 Hearst Memorial Mining Building
Ayokunle Olanrewaju
University of Washington
Join us for our next Bioengineering Department Seminar
Thursday, November 5
12:00 – 1:00 pm
290 Hearst Memorial Mining Building
Mike Mitchell
Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation, Bioengineering
University of Pennsylvania
Please join us for the 2026-27 Distinguished Lecture in Bioengineering
“Fluid Machinery: The Nucleolus, Ribosomes, and Aging”
Dr. Clifford Brangwynne
June K. Wu ‘92 Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering,
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Founding Director of the Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute
Princeton University
Wednesday, December 2, 2026
4:00 – 5:00 PM
105 Stanley Hall, UC Berkeley
Abstract:
Research combining insights from materials physics and cell biology has ushered in a new paradigm for understanding how the chaotic intracellular environment is brought to order, through the collective condensation of biomolecules into droplets of living information. In this talk, I will present an overview of these principles and ongoing work in this field, with a particular emphasis on the interplay between liquid-like condensates and traditional biomolecular machines, such as the ribosome, which forms through a complex assembly process in the multiphase nucleolus. Our lab has recently developed a set of tools to probe and engineer the nucleolus and the production of ribosomes, as well as their cytoplasmic function in protein translation. These studies are yielding new insights into how assembled ribosomes function in space and time, and how ribosomes can become dysregulated by molecular and organismal aging.
Don't miss our annual Distinguished Lecture in Bioengineering and Rising Star Lecture.
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