Work by former postdoc Kiana Aran with Profs Murthy and Conboy combines CRISPR with electronic transistors made from graphene to create a new hand-held device that can detect specific genetic mutations in a matter of minutes.
BioE News
Lessons learned from the job market after the Berkeley MEng
BioE MEng alumnus Bradley Los (2018) shares his path from newly admitted grad student to full-time engineer at a top company.
Streets receives NSF CAREER Award
Professor Aaron Streets has been awarded a 2019 NSF CAREER Award for his research on a microfluidic-microscopy hybrid platform for whole-tissue chemical and transcriptional profiling. The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent […]
Welcome Professor Liana Lareau!
We are extremely pleased to announce our newest faculty member, Dr. Liana Lareau. A graduate of MIT and UC Berkeley, her research uses computational and molecular biology to understand how post-transcriptional regulation leads to robust and flexible control of gene expression. Welcome Liana!
Healy wins CERSI research award
Professor Kevin Healy has been awarded a grant from the FDA through the UCSF-Stanford Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI). The grant will cover collaborative research on “Multi-organ microphysiological systems for modeling clinical drug effects.”
Cannabis – made by synthetic biology
Professor Jay Keasling and collaborators have engineered brewer’s yeast to produce marijuana’s main ingredients—mind-altering THC and non-psychoactive CBD—as well as novel cannabinoids not found in the plant itself. Feeding only on sugar, the yeast are an easy and cheap way to produce pure cannabinoids that today are costly to extract from the buds of the marijuana plant, Cannabis sativa.
Pivot Bio in 2019 World’s Most Innovative Companies
Pivot Bio, founded by Bioengineering PhD alumnus Karsten Temme, was named #8 in Fast Company’s 2019 “The World’s Most Innovative Companies” list, in the Food sector. Pivot Bio makes the world’s first nitrogen-producing microbial that grafts onto corn to act as a sustainable fertilizer.
Student feature: Prithiv Natarajan
Prithiv is a BioE student and career rep in the MEng program from Chennai, India. He is currently working on a Capstone project with the USPTO, using VR to deal with a variety of patenting issues.
Conboy weighs in on young blood treatments
Professor Irina Conboy and researcher Michael Conboy were interviewed by ABC News on the practice of infusing young blood into older adults in an attempt to thwart the aging process. The FDA recently issued a warning against this practice, supported by the Conboys, experts on aging research.