What's Current in

Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology

grad student Kirsten Rollins on stage giving her Grad Slam presentation
Photo Credit
Jeff Liang
Grad Slam champion Kirsten Rollins, April 3, 2025

Promising cancer research earns top honors at 2025 Grad Slam

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A fruit fly larva with imagined electric field lines in the background.
Photo Credit
Sakkmesterke vi Adobe Stock
Fruit fly larvae will reorient themselves toward the negative pole of an electric field.

Scientists discover that fruit fly larvae can sense electric fields
Daniela Soto at her lab bench
Photo Credit
Jordan Strauss / AP Images for HHMI
Daniela Soto

UCSB postdoc receives competitive award to investigate the genetic changes that shaped the human mind
Meghan Morrissey behind lab equipment.
Photo Credit
Matt Perko
Meghan Morrissey

‘Brave and bold’ new strategies for cancer immunotherapy
A man with glasses sits on a train, gazing out the window with a contemplative expression. A woman leans her head on his shoulder, partially obscured, wearing glasses and a blue sweater. The train interior is softly lit, and other passengers can be seen in the blurred background.
Photo Credit
Courtesy
Film still from the documentary “Walk With Me” about Los Angeles designer Charlie Hess and his journey into early-onset Alzheimer’s.

UCSB research featured in Alzheimer’s documentary at SBIFF
Meghan Morrissey uses a micropipette in her lab.
Photo Credit
Matt Perko
Morrissey’s group is working to harness macrophage immune cells for novel cancer therapies.

Prof. Meghan Morrissey honored by the American Cancer Society for her work on cancer immunotherapy
Yellow silhouettes of a large female and small male mosquito facing away from each other.
Photo Credit
Matt Perko
If a male mosquito can’t hear a female, it’s as though she doesn’t exist.

Deaf male mosquitoes don’t mate
two scientists in green vests talking to each other
Photo Credit
Mapping Alzheimer's Productions
Colombian neuroscientist Francisco Lopera, left, and UCSB neuroscientist Kenneth S. Kosik

Mapping Alzheimer’s: UCSB’s Cristina Venegas follows a genetic puzzle tracing Alzheimer’s roots from Colombia
Denise Montell
Photo Credit
Matt Perko
Denise Montell

Professor Denise Montell wins second NIH Pioneer Award, receiving $5.5 million for immune therapy research
An electron-microscopy image of the fruit fly's anterior visual pathway
Photo Credit
Dustin Garner, Emil Kind
An electron-microscopy image of the fruit fly's anterior visual pathway — all neurons involved in processing visual information and conveying it to the navigation center in the fly brain. Compass neurons are in the circular area at the center

Researchers' reconstruction of fruit fly’s anterior visual pathway will lead to insights into animal navigation
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Opening up office hours
scientists in lab with crates
Photo Credit
Jeff Liang
UCSB ExFAB staff and senior participants, from left, Oliver Vining, Elaine Kirschke, Jean-Marie Volland, Nathalie Elisabeth, Sherylle Mills Englander, Max Wilson, Michelle O'Malley, Joel Rothman, Niels Volkmann and Carolyn Mills.

UCSB to lead $22M NSF-funded center on exceptional microbes
Pedestrians in IR walk along a cobblestone street.
Photo Credit
Ildar Abulkhanov via iStock
It’s not quite heat vision, but mosquitoes do use thermal infrared to find human hosts.

Mosquitoes sense infrared from body heat to help track humans down
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