Each discipline, in turn, has met a critical need and played a role in creating life as we know it. The discovery of DNA, the Human Genome Project, gene editing, and other advances that promise to revolutionize life have now put the biological sciences on center stage. And Builders have stepped up to support these discoveries that are changing the world.

In the late 1990s, the campus increasingly focused on interdisciplinary research and teaching in the biomedical sciences and bioengineering as well as the training of a new generation of outstanding scientists. These efforts received invaluable support from such benefactors as William V. Power ’30 and Gordon ’50 and Betty Moore.

The California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3-Berkeley) was established in 2001 with state and private funds. In 2008, philanthropist Tom Siebel launched the Siebel Stem Cell Institute, a collaborative venture between the Berkeley Stem Cell Center and the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, where Siebel Scholars and postdoctoral fellows continue to translate science into promising medical interventions at a rapid pace.

The watershed moment for bioengineering came with the co-discovery of the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors by Berkeley professor Jennifer Doudna. Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this epoch-bending discovery. Using these genetic scissors, researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants, and microorganisms with extremely high precision. This is contributing to new cancer therapies and has the potential to cure inherited diseases.

Doudna is the founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute in the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences. Opened in 2012 as a nexus for multidisciplinary research into the molecular basis for disease, the center was made possible by a $40 million lead gift from global entrepreneur and philanthropist Li Ka-shing.

The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, is a $600 million multi-institutional venture funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, physician Priscilla Chan. In its first year, 13 faculty received a total of $14.5 million over five years to accelerate the pace of discovery toward curing, preventing, and managing deadly diseases through biomedical research.

Regent Mark J. ’88 and Stephanie Robinson ’89 made a commitment to sustain the Robinson Life Sciences Business and Entrepreneurship (LSBE) Program for undergraduates, which enables students to pursue concurrent degrees in biological sciences and business. Their investment will also provide a scholarship aimed at drawing more African American and Latinx students to the LSBE Program and create the Biotechnology Entrepreneurship Center, supported with a gift from David Kirn ’85 and Kristin Ahlquist.