Feature Articles

Explore feature articles from previous annual reports.

2024

Artificial Intelligence is Changing the Landscape of Biomedical and Clinical Research

By Sarah C.P. Williams

In the not-too-distant future, this bench-to-bedside scenario could be commonplace: a powerful artificial intelligence (AI) program designs a new molecule to correct a disease-causing protein, potentially eliminating all symptoms of the disease. A researcher then designs experiments to test the corrected new protein in diseased cells...

2022

To Educate, To Learn, To Inspire: Beckman Center Educational Programs Help Scientists Explore New Ideas

By Sarah C.P. Williams

As they probe how the universe works, from the tiniest atoms to the vast reaches of outer space or the complexities of human cognition, scientists are quintessential lifelong learners.

2020

Beckman Service Centers: Providing the Most Advanced Technologies

By Sarah C.P. Williams

The ability to explore—it’s a sentiment that’s echoed by every faculty member who uses the Beckman Service Centers. The facilities provide not only equipment and software, but training and support that’s hard to put a price tag on. 

2023

New Faculty Members Bring New Ideas to the Beckman Center

By Sarah C.P. Williams

Scientists are the lifeblood of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine. Their ideas, ingenuity, and curiosity fuel innovative research that helps to fulfill the mission of the Beckman Center: to promote discovery and innovation in the basic sciences, encourage interdisciplinary collaboration, and accelerate connections between the research bench and clinical medicine.

2021

Scientists Work Furiously to Tackle COVID-19

By Ruthann Richter

 When the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus spread throughout the world last year, triggering a global pandemic and a university-wide shutdown, scientists across the Stanford University campus had to curtail their lab operations—and think creatively about how to carry on their research.

2019

Three Decades of Technology Innovation

By Ashley P. Taylor

Since the founding of the Beckman Center in 1989, scientists and engineers have developed a wealth of technologies for learning about how life works at the levels of cells, molecules, and genes.

2019

Women Scientists of the Beckman Center

By Anna Azvolinksky

Something these women of science had in common was a desire to be part of what each describes as the collegiate, collaborative, and inquisitive culture at the Beckman Center and Stanford University.

2018

Beckman Researchers Map Intricacies of Lung Cancer in One of Their Own

By Krista Conger

“I believe that the knowledge we will learn from this study will guide the standard of care for all lung adenocarcinoma patients. It’s a remarkable story.”

—Mark Krasnow, M.D., Ph.D

2017

Molecular and Cellular Physiology at the Beckman Center: Deepening our Understanding of Life from Systems to Cells to Molecules

By Krista Conger

It was an unconventional location for a pair of neuroscientists. But Daniel Madison, Ph.D., and Richard Tsien, Ph.D., set up shop in a building attached to the Stanford Museum of Art. 

2015

Major Discoveries and Technological Advances in Biochemistry at the Beckman Center

By Krista Conger

It was a seismic shift in the geographic center of gravity for a relatively new scientific field. In June of 1959, six young researchers  moved from Washington University in St. Louis to create a new department of biochemistry at Stanford.

2019

Beckman’s Focus on Translational Medicine Yields Benefits for Patients

By Ruth Ann Richter

The goal was to create a new research hub, a rich community of people with backgrounds in science and medicine who could work together toward solutions in a highly collaborative environment.

2016

Developmental Biology at the Beckman Center: Discovering the Events that Control the Formation of Life

By Krista Conger

The new developmental biology department quickly went from relative anomaly to celebrated powerhouse that solved many of the problems that had plagued the field for decades during the early and mid-1900s.

2014

25 Years of Innovation, Discovery, and Collaboration at the Beckman Center

By Krista Conger

“I see the Beckman Center as a place that is willing to push research boundaries and take the risks necessary to support important research ideas.”

—Lucy Shapiro, Ph.D., Beckman Center Director