Brooks Lab discovery: lactate rivals glucose as body's major fuel after a carb meal

George Brooks Lab
Integrative Biology graduate student Robert Leija and the whole Professor George Brooks Lab make a discovery. The study was part of a larger NIH-funded study to determine how well people switch from fat to carbohydrate metabolism as they age. Read the Berkeley News Article.
 

IB Participating in Big Give 24

Graduate students in front of T-rex in Valley Life Sciences Building

This Thursday, March 14 is Big Give, the annual online giving day when the entire UC Berkeley community comes together to support their favorite departments and programs. Join us this year in our support of the Department of Integrative Biology. Every gift makes a difference. On March 14, donate to IB and show your support for our students. Special for this year's Big Give: If we receive 15 gifts during Big Give, we will unlock a $5,000 gift from Marc Carrasco, and a $5,000 gift from an anonymous donor!

Application Now Open: IB Summer Undergraduate Research Experience Program

Justice Williams and Stephen Eun Song
Justice Williams and Stephen Eun Song, 2023 IBSURE interns.

The IB Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (IB SURE) Program has now opened it's application. This program is for undergraduates or recent undergraduates who are considering a graduate degree in the biological sciences. Program runs from May 31 - Aug 9, 2024. Interested students should apply by April 1, 2024. See here for more information.

 

Sparrows uniquely adapted to Bay Area marshes are losing their uniqueness

Phred Benham
Phred Benham, a postdoc in the Bowie Lab.

A new genomic analysis of Savannah sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis) from around the state — many of them collected as far back as 1889, their specimens stored in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley — shows that over the past 128 years, the Bay Area's sparrow's adaptation to salt water is being diminished by interbreeding with inland sparrows adapted to fresh water. Read More...