Bioengineering News

photo of Yartsev near trees

Yartsev wins Richard Lounsbery Award

January 23, 2025

Michael Yartsev will receive the 2025 Richard Lounsbery Award from the National Academy of Sciences to recognize his extraordinary scientific achievement in understanding the neural basis of natural behaviors.

MoA animation by Visual Science, 2024

Bridge RNAs: ‘Holy Grail’ in Next-Gen Gene Editing Tech?

January 17, 2025

Patrick Hsu’s breakthrough discovery of bridge RNA gene editing tools is discussed on WebMD, with contributions from BioE alumnus Connor Tou.

Photo of gloved hands with sample containers and receptacle during RNA sample extraction in the centrifuge. Image taken in the Healy lab and courtesy of Jazmin Isabel Velazquez.

Diverse paths to discovery at UC Berkeley

December 3, 2024

BioE graduate student Jazmin Isabel Velazquez examines the unique paths every graduate student takes on the road to their PhD in this story based on her experience in the Healy and Rubinsky Labs.

Photo of Lam receiving best paper certificate on stage at conference

Herr Lab Postdoc Wins AIP Best Paper

November 12, 2024

Trinh Lam, a postdoc in Amy Herr’s lab, has won the Biomicrofluidics Best Paper Award from AIP Publishing at the 28th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences – Micro-Total Analysis Systems (µTAS 2024).

head and shoulders photo of Adam Arkin standing in hallway

Arkin Lab receives ARPA-H award for microbiome engineering

November 5, 2024

Adam Arkin has been granted an award of over $20 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to pursue microbiome engineering to create probiotic bacterial communities that prevent and treat lung pathogens.

brain section image showing wide distribution of edited cells in the cortex

Could a new medical approach fix faulty genes before birth?

November 5, 2024

Murthy lab and UC Davis have developed a unique mRNA delivery method for in-utero gene editing for neurodevelopmental conditions.

Drawing of the LNPs encapsulating iGeoCas9 RNP

Thermostable Cas9 Enhances RNP Performance in Lung and Liver

November 5, 2024

Niren Murthy et al. have developed a more stable version of the Cas9 enzyme to improve delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 ribonucleoproteins (RNPs) for in vivo gene editing.

Healy Lab startup receives LSEC Venture Grant

October 15, 2024

MuscleMatrix and their hydrogel scaffold for muscle loss injuries is part of LSEC’s 2nd cohort of Venture Grant startups.

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Times Higher Ed ranks UC Berkeley No.1 public university in U.S.

October 14, 2024

Times Higher Education again ranks UC Berkeley the number one public university in the U.S.

Faculty Focus on Leah Guthrie

October 10, 2024

Professor Leah Guthrie works to understand how the microbiome metabolites and proteins communicate with our human cells to influence our physiology and pathophysiology. Learn more about Guthrie in this interview with QB3.

Clare Lou (left) and Derfogail Delcassian stand before a banner for the Innovative Genomics Institute

Delcassian receives seed funding for cancer research

October 1, 2024

Professor Derfogail Delcassian has been awarded $1 million in non-dilutive seed funding to accelerate the commercialization of her work on targeted molecular therapies for hard-to-treat cancers.

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Undergraduate program ranks 6th in the US!

September 24, 2024

The Berkeley Bioengineering undergraduate program has moved up to rank 6th in the nation in the latest rankings released by US News & World Report.

Drawing of cell experiencing efficient endosomal disruption by mRNA. Image by Murthy Lab

Acid-degradable lipid nanoparticles enhance the delivery of mRNA

August 23, 2024

Research by Niren Murthy’s lab presents a new acid-degradable linker that rapidly hydrolyzes in endosomes but is stable in the blood, which could significantly increase the efficiency of delivering mRNA-based therapies to cells.

Illustration of alpha-lipoic acid molecular structure, as clear bubbles on a light blue background

New recyclable adhesives can be easily adapted for medical, consumer and industrial applications

August 23, 2024

Messersmith Lab has created a family of polymers from a stabilized alpha-lipoic acid which could lead to versatile, high-performance and environmentally friendly recyclable adhesives.

The Boba-seq logo, created by former Arkin Lab undergraduate student researcher Davian Ho. A drawing of a large cup of boba tea, where the boba pearls represent expressed genes

Revealing the Mysteries Within Microbial Genomes

August 20, 2024

Adam Arkin’s lab has developed a new technique, barcoded overexpression bacterial shotgun library sequencing (Boba-seq), that will make it much easier for researchers to discover the traits or activities encoded by genes of unknown function in microbes.

Michael Yartsev stands in a darkened room with his hands on his hips. Yellow and teal lights swirl around him.

Yartsev new HHMI Investigator

July 23, 2024

Congratulations Professor Michael Yartsev, named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator!

head and shoulders photo of professor Di Carlo in front of a brick wall

Di Carlo new Chair of UCLA Bioengineering

July 15, 2024

BS and PhD alumnus Dino Di Carlo has been named Chair of the Department of Bioengineering at UCLA.

MoA animation by Visual Science, 2024

Scientists Discover Next-Generation System for Programmable Genome Design

July 2, 2024

A team of researchers led by Professor Patrick Hsu has discovered the first DNA recombinase that is programmable, allowing the user to specify any desired genomic target sequence and any donor DNA molecule to be inserted. The bridge recombinase mechanism promises to expand genome editing beyond CRISPR and RNA interference (RNAi) to offer a unified mechanism for programmable DNA rearrangements. Bioengineering graduate student Nicholas Perry is also a lead author of the study, along with other researchers from the Arc Institute.

ImpriMed: Providing Personalized Medicine For Pets With Blood Cancer Diseases

June 17, 2024

Pulse 2.0 interviewed MTM alumnus Sungwon Lim, founder of ImpriMed, a company that provides personalized medicine for pets with blood cancer diseases.

flying bat Photo by Yuval Barkai @bats.tlv

So to speak: how bats and humans communicate

June 13, 2024

Berkeley researchers led by Professor Michael Yartsev, working with scientists at Carnegie Mellon University, have identified the part of the brain in Egyptian fruit bats that controls vocalizations and found that it contains similar neural wiring and genetics to the part of the human brain that controls speech.

computer graphic showing towers of red and blue DNA and flames

Putting on the heat

June 11, 2024

Professor Seung-Wuk Lee discusses pyroelectricity: the finding that viruses can generate electricity when exposed to heat, and how this may pave the way for next-generation biosensors and diagnostic tools.

Tony Consiglio, Alan Maida and Boris Rubinsky in their Etcheverry Hall lab. (Photo by Adam Lau/Berkeley Engineering)

Cool it down

June 11, 2024

How isochoric preservation can protect food, organs — and even the planet. Professor Boris Rubinsky discusses the state of the art in cryogenics and preservation.

computer graphic showing towers of red and blue DNA and flames

Viral Pyroelectricity with Seung-Wuk Lee

June 10, 2024

Professor Seung-Wuk Lee discusses pyroelectricity: the finding that viruses can generate electricity when exposed to heat, and how this may pave the way for next-generation biosensors and diagnostic tools.

photo of the members of the 2024 MEng capstone innovation award team, four women, holding their award certificates

BioE team wins 2024 Fung Institute Capstone Innovation Award

May 28, 2024

The Master of Engineering capstone design team advised by bioengineering faculty Kevin Healy and Syed Hossainy has won the 2024 Capstone Innovation Award. The team of Angana Dasgupta, Isabella Lopez, Natalie Saadeh, and Boyan Yin was selected for their project, “Experimental assessment of multiple cell lines’ function and morphology on piezo-responsive films under small amplitude…

photo of Yartsev near trees

Yartsev wins Boehringer Ingelheim FENS Research Award 2024

May 28, 2024

The Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) has selected Professor Michael Yartsev for the 2024 Boehringer Ingelheim FENS Research Award, given in recognition of outstanding and innovative work from all areas of neuroscience. The award will be presented at the FENS Forum conference in Vienna.