Researchers led by Professor David Schaffer have for the first time used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing to disable a defective gene that causes amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, in mice, extending their lifespan by 25 percent.
Archives for 2017
Conolly Lab – closing in on cancer through MPI
Bioengineering and EECS professor Steven Conolly is building a new kind of medical diagnostic technology called magnetic particle imaging (MPI).
BioE alum Ranganathan to lead UChicago’s Center for Physics of Evolving Systems
Prominent scientist Rama Ranganathan received his undergraduate degree in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley as one of the pioneering students in the Engineering Science BioE program, before the founding of the department. Now Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Chicago, Ranganathan will lead their new center spanning the Division of the Biological Sciences and the Institute for Molecular Engineering.
PhD student Rao builds pneumonia diagnostic
BioE PhD student Adam Rao is part of the team that designed Tabla, a low-cost device that uses sound waves to detect the presence of pneumonia. Tabla is the winner of the student category of Fast Company‘s 2017 Innovation by Design Awards.
Budinger to Receive 2018 IEEE Medal for Innovations in Healthcare Technology
Professor Emeritus and Founding Chair of Bioengineering, Dr. Thomas Budinger, will receive the 2018 Medal for Innovations in Healthcare Technology from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Professor Budinger is being honored for his “pioneering contributions to tomographic radiotracer imaging,” one of his many contributions to the field of medical imaging.
Conboy receives $5mil Open Philanthropy grant
The Open Philanthropy Project awarded a grant of $5 million over five years to support research on the basic biology of aging-related diseases and impairments, led by Dr. Irina Conboy.
Lee and Satish in 30 Under 30
2016 PhD Kunwoo Lee and 2011 MTM Siddarth Satish have been named to the 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30. Lee, a former student in Professor Niren Murthy’s lab and founder of startup GenEdit, developed a way to deliver muscular dystrophy-curing CRISPR edits to the body using nanoparticles. Satish is the founder and CEO of Gauss Surgical, a company that has developed technology to monitor blood loss in the operating room.
A cellphone-based microscope for treating river blindness
In a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Fletcher Lab describes how the LoaScope, a modification their Cellscope, can provide fast and effective testing for Loa loa parasites in the blood. Using the LoaScope to analyze the blood of volunteers from villages in Cameroon, doctors were able to successfully treat more than 15,000 patients with ivermectin without serious complications.
Yartsev in Science: Rebalancing diversity of animal models in neuroscience research
Published in Science today, a review article by Prof. Michael Yartsev on the current decline in the diversity of species used for neuroscience research. The field has converged on a few selected model organisms, but Yartsev proposes that neuroscience might be ready to diversify again, if provided the appropriate support.