Gleanings

Epic appearance:

Renan and Japanese film legend Akira Kurosawa at the PFA, July 1978

Brutalist structure on Bancroft Way. When that building was deemed seismically unsound in the 1990s, the PFA moved to a temporary space on campus before landing in its current locale—a metal-clad, sky-lit building on Oxford Street—rejoining its partner institution to create the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).

Through each relocation, the PFA has continued to offer a wide variety of film programs, screening everything from French New Wave favorites to works from Senegal, Hungary, and Vietnam. The archive also boasts the largest collection of Japanese films outside of Japan. A fan of directors like Akira Kurosawa (whose film Dodeskaden was the first one screened at the PFA in 1971), Renan wanted the PFA to showcase films from the entire Pacific Rim—a fact that helps explain the archive’s name.

During a recent virtual tour of the archive’s library, Jason Sanders, the PFA’s film research associate, pulled up an image of what he calls the “Valley of Knowledge,” a space on BAMPFA’s lower level where, in pre-pandemic times, BAMPFA’S GRAND RE-OPENING visitors could inquire about and view archived materials on monitors in the center of the room. ON THE LAST DAY OF APRIL, THE BERKELEY ART

With more than 15,000 films and videos, 150 international film periodical MUSEUM REOPENED ITS DOORS—more than a year after titles, 36,000 film stills, 7,500 posters, and more than 7,600 books on film the- it halted in-person visits due to COVID-19. Among the ory, history, and criticism, the archive can be daunting, to say the least. Sand- exhibitions now on display is Kay Sekimachi: Geometries, ers—who, according to colleagues, has an “encyclopedic knowledge” of the archive’s treasures—enjoys helping folks find what they need. “One of our missions is to be open to everyone,” he says. “It’s really fun to share [the archive] with people.” an extensive survey of textile art by renowned fiber artist (and Berkeley local since 1930) Kay Sekimachi. A first-generation descendant of Japanese immigrants, Sekimachi is known for her innovative construction techniques and use of materials that celebrate her

To make the archive even more accessible, Sanders and his team have been heritage, such as antique Japanese paper and maple busy digitizing and indexing the PFA’s collection. Documents such as publicity leaves. The exhibition features nearly 50 works from materials, program notes, scholarly articles, and letters from filmmakers can throughout her decades-long career, including her early be viewed online through a project called CineFiles. Much of the PFA’s film monofilament sculptures—suspended at the gallery’s and audio collection—including interviews with artists center—as well as origamilike David Lynch, Angela Davis, and Marlon Riggs—is also inspired pieces and Sekimachi’s available online at Archive.org. Sanders’s favorite PFA offering: documentaries by Newsreel, an activist film collective established in the late 1960s. Sampling clips from Newsreel pieces on the Black Panther Party and People’s Park, Sanders explains that “Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin.” more recent minimalist weavings. “Honoring a ‘California girl’ at her hometown museum ... is just a gift,” said curator Jenelle Porter. “Curators make exhibitions for many reasons, footage like this is central to PFA’s mission: to preserve California’s history through film. While the PFA staff have continued to offer virtual programs during the pandemic, they are keen to welcome visitors back to normal. “Of course I’m still so paranoid about what ‘normal’ is going to be,” says Sanders. “But it’ll just be good to open and to see people streaming through the building and into the theater again.” In a 1971 interview, Renan said of his infant archive: “This whole thing is put together with spit, chewing gum, [and] good intentions.” Fifty years later, those bonds still Berkeley scientist Jennifer Doudna’s response to a question on the podcast Stereo Chemistry, about her favorite celebrity encounter. Doudna was on the show with fellow Nobel laureate Frances Arnold, Ph.D. ’85, who said, “All right, I met Jimmy Page. And he’s pretty cool. … But I actually got to go to Sidney Poitier’s 80th birthday party, and that was really spectacular.” among them to see art in person, to gather objects together in a gallery so that we might generate knowledge, context, and conversation. Seeing Kay’s artwork in person after this long year of crises and closures will, I hope, be a kind of balm.” Kay Sekimachi: Geometries will be available for viewing at BAMPFA through October 24, 2021. hold.  —M.W.

Scientists Take Aim at Sickle Cell

WHEN THE GENE-EDITING TECHNOLOGY CRISPR/CAS9 was discovered in 2012 by Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna and collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, it changed genetics forever. “We’ve been able to read and write DNA for a long time. We have machines to sequence it (read); and to synthesize it (write). What we haven’t been able to do is to rewrite it—to edit it. And now we have a tool TIME TO ELECTRIFY TRUCKING FLEET that lets you do something about that,” Doudna told THE EXTINCTION OF SMOKECalifornia in 2014. BELCHING, diesel-guzzling, com-

Now, nearly a decade after its discovery—and a mercial long-haul trucks could be 2020 Nobel Prize for Doudna and Charpentier—UC scientists have been given the FDA’s go-ahead to use CRISPR in clinical trials to treat sickle cell disease, the congenital disorder that contorts red blood cells into artery-clogging crescents. The painful and sometimes fatal condition afflicts more than 70,000 Americans and is particularly common among those with African “OH. MY. GREGOR. (and Rosalind)” on the horizon, according to a study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UCLA. The metaphorical asteroid that would do the behemoths in? A combination of improved technology and public policy to promote the transition to battery-powered rigs. ancestry. Currently, the only cure is a stem cell trans- The switch to electric would plant from bone marrow, which is risky. Berkeley geneticist Fyodor Urnov not only save truckers money (up Because sickle cell is caused by a single mutation on the beta-globin gene, it’s an attractive target for CRISPR therapy. Only one defective segment of DNA in the affected gene needs to be overwritten. Scientists from Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSF are set to do just that this summer, when they’ll begin the first in-human clinical trial of CRISPR gene-correction therapy in exclaiming, in a tweet, about the successful preliminary results of a new gene-editing therapy to treat sickle cell disease. “Gregor” is Gregor Mendel, the “father of genetics.” “Rosalind” is Rosalind Franklin, who played a crucial role in elucidating the double helix to $200,000 in lifelong ownership costs), it could also help cut air pollution and curb global warming. Trucking now accounts for nearly a third of all greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. While battery technology is often thought to be a key limiting factor in nine patients with sickle cell disease. structure of DNA. the adoption of electric trucks, the

For now, researchers will repair the damaged cells study’s authors contend that, in fact, ex vivo, or outside the body, but they are confident “recent dramatic declines in battery they will soon find ways to deliver the CRISPR therapy prices and improvement in their directly to bone marrow in patients. energy density have created oppor-

Sickle cell may be just the start. “Our efforts will have a ripple tunities for battery-electric trucking today that were seleffect to enable cures for blood disorders in general … as well as diseases of the immune system,” Berkeley scientist Ross Wilson, director of therapeutic delivery at the Doudna-founded Innovative Genomics Institute, told Berkeley News. “The hematopoietic stem dom anticipated just a few years ago.” What’s lacking, rather, is an “appropriate policy ecosystem” to address existing barriers to adoption, including higher up-front costs and a lack of charging infrastructure. With the right policies and incentives, cell is the seed for the entire immune system, so all blood disorders however, the world’s trucking fleets could soon be can theoretically be cured by a stem cell therapy like this.” running on electrons. — Katherine Blesie — Charlie Pike