Animals live in a spatiotemporally complex sensory world, but current understanding of how the brain processes sensory information to mediate perception is based on highly simplified, isolated stimuli. This collaborative project will reveal how the brain’s cerebral cortex encodes and processes complex tactile (touch) stimuli, using the mouse whisker system as a model. Building on prior work in other species, we will identify the optimal single-whisker stimuli for cortical neurons, and determine how these single-whisker responses are integrated across whiskers and across time to build a...
We propose to address fundamental questions related to aging of hematopoietic stem cells, which give rise to all cells of the immune system. We aim to understand how hematopoietic stem cells lose their functional capacity to support the immune system during aging and explore the therapeutic potential to reverse the degeneration and dysfunction of the aging immune system. Successful completion of these studies will reveal key factors that play paramount roles in maintaining stem cell homeostasis and tissue integrity during the aging process, and suggest new approaches to improve the immune...
The wine industry is a major economic asset of California and Bordeaux, which are widely considered among the finest and most qualitative wine regions in the world. Yet, the current climate change transforms the soil quality and could affect future wine production. That is what pushed both Eoin Brodie (Deputy Director of the Climate and Ecosystems Sciences Division of the Berkeley Lab) and Myriam Schmutz (Full Professor at the Institut National Polytechnique of Bordeaux) to focus on a comparative analysis of the biogeophysics of the Californian and Bordeaux wine regions....
FBF is absoltuely delighted to sponsor 21 outstanding projects for 2023-24! Congratulations to the grantees!
Project span Applied Science, Engineering, Exact Science, Humanities and Social Science and many of the projects take an interdiscipinary approach. For a full overview of this year's funded projects, click here.
This project will address fundamental questions on the function, diversity and evolution of plant NLRs (nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich repeat domain proteins) that are an important class of immune receptors and the main class of genes employed in crop disease resistance breeding. This collaboration between the research groups of K. Krasileva at UC Berkeley and T. Kroj at INRA Montpellier will result in exchange of expertise and joint development of standardized protocols for functional and comparative genomic investigation of NLRs.
The gut microbiota provides number of beneficial functions to its host, including nutrition, immune system regulation and niche protection against pathogens, and in return, the host shapes the environment to ensure commensal bacteria provide benefit. To maintain this ecosystemic symbiotic interactions at the organ scale, a myriad of microscale interactions occurs, between bacteria, or between the host and the microbiota. Data at different scale and resolution must be articulated to decipher these ecosystem-wide regulation mechanisms. This project aims at building an appropriate...
Choroid plexus (CP) epithelia main function consists in producing and regulating cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Such regulation is achieved through transepithelial solute transport via plasma membrane ion channels and transporters. Interestingly, steroids and specially progesterone has been shown to exert potent neuroprotective action. Since fluid secretion in CP is under control of ion channels and transporters, we aim to explore whether progesterone can modulate Transient Receptor Potential channel activity directly in an unconventional manner meaning a rapid non-genomic way. The...
Wildfires have become a reoccurring phenomenon in the South of France and in California. Our proposed work focusses on the boundaries of fires between suburban development and fire prone terrains that are covered by forests, grassland or chaparral in three CAL-FIRE districts within the San Francisco Bay Area. Our team will conduct ten-day residences in each of the three districts to record and communicate the conditions in burn-out areas of recent fires through images, drawings and text. The objective is to create a foundation for public policy on urban fringe developments in areas...
Our project aims to evaluate a new drug to treat brucellosis, an infectious disease transmissible to humans by certain domestic animals (cows or goats). This debilitating disease affects around 1 million new people each year. The advantage of this candidate drug is that it is already being used to treat another disease, which would significantly reduce the costs and validation time to be able to use it to control brucellosis.
The aim of this project is to contribute to the development of new strategies and technologies for music processing, and specifically for Assisted Orchestration (AO). The project builds on current work carried out in each team to assemble the necessary technical infrastructure, create tools, and conduct the analysis for the development of techniques for AO.
