BMSB graduate student Lily Taylor (Rodriguez group) is the 2025 graduate student recipient of the Arnold J. Berk Research Achievement Award, presented by the Molecular Biology Institute (MBI) at UCLA.
The 2025 Arnold J. Berk Research Achievement Award recognizes one graduate student ($2,000) and one postdoctoral fellow ($3,000) each year. Recipients must be working in the lab of an MBI faculty member and are selected based on research originality, creativity, and overall achievement. Dr. Soon-Gook Hong (Mack group) received the 2025 postdoctoral award.
Taylor is pictured above with Professor Arnold Berk at the awards ceremony.
Taylor is a graduate student in the Biochemistry, Molecular and Structural Biology (BMSB) program, working with Professor Jose Rodriguez. Her innovative cryoEM approach aims to determine the native structures of viral proteins, enhancing our understanding of antiviral treatments (Figure 1).
Taylor is the first author of a paper recently published in Cell Reports, which details the Rodriguez group’s novel method for advancing antiviral research.
Figure 1. The schematic shows Junin virus glycoproteins on native virus-like particle membranes (left) that when imaged by cryoEM reveal molecular details involved in virus neutralization by antibodies such as the vaccine-derived antibody CR1-28 (middle, right).
Taylor was previously supported by the Cellular and Molecular Biology (CMB) training grant, and was recently awarded a 2025-2026 UCLA Graduate Division Dissertation Year Award (DYA) and the UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry’s 2025 John M. Jordan Excellence in Research award.
A native of Washington state, Taylor received her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Arizona W.A. Franke Honors College in 2020. Taylor then joined the UCLA department of chemistry and biochemistry BMSB program where she uses structural biology to interrogate viral machinery.
The award honors Professor Emeritus Arnold J. Berk, a member of the UCLA Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics. Berk was a former Director of the MBI. He is a pioneering discoverer of RNA splicing and an expert in the viral regulation of gene expression.
Photos courtesy of Helen Houldsworth, UCLA Molecular Biology Institute.
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penjen@g.ucla.edu.
