The grants to Jennifer Doudna and John Ngai, both UC Berkeley professors of molecular and cell biology, are among 78 grants announced today (Monday, May 10) by the foundation in the fourth funding round of Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative to help scientists around the world "explore bold and largely unproven ways to improve health in developing countries," according to the foundation. The winning proposals, selected from almost 2,700 in this round alone, were submitted by scientists in 18 countries on six continents.

Doudna, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, studies ribonucleic acid, or RNA, which is a molecular cousin to the DNA that makes up genes. RNAs in various forms are responsible for an array of functions inside cells, from synthesizing proteins and exporting them from the cell, to regulating the expression of genes.

The researchers discovered in fruit flies that keeping the insulin receptor revved up in the brain prevents the die-off of neural stem cells that occurs when most regions of the brain mature into their adult forms. Whether the same technique will work in humans is unknown, but the UC Berkeley team hopes to find out.

"This work doesn't point the way to taking an adult who has already lost stem cells and bringing them back mysteriously, but it suggests what mechanisms might be operating to get rid of them in the first place," said Iswar K. Hariharan, UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology. "Plus, if you were able to introduce neural stem cells into an adult brain, this suggests what kinds of mechanisms you might need to have in place to keep them alive."

For years, cancer doctors have known that many patients aren't helped by the drugs they're given. For instance, only 20 per cent of those with advanced lung cancer will benefit from certain drugs.

Even among those receiving a very effective drug such as tamoxifen for breast cancer, 30 per cent don't respond.

The trouble is that, until now, there hasn't been any reliable way of working out who will do best on which treatments. But that is about to change. An important study has found that people with a certain type of gene won't benefit from selected cancer drugs.

This is hugely significant because it means gene tests can be used to work out which patients will do best on a drug, and as a result cancer treatments will become much more effective.

Meanwhile, thousands of patients will be saved from the debilitating side-effects of chemotherapy they are given without gaining any benefit.