Infectious Disease

Recent news:

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.

Alumnus Di Carlo will lead new UCLA Chan Zuckerberg Initiative cell research project

February 29, 2024

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has allocated a $4 million grant to support collaborative research by UCLA, USC and CalTech that will examine cellular behaviors, many of which play a key role in developing immunity to pathogens and disease. Dino Di Carlo, UCLA professor of bioengineering and UC Berkeley BS and PhD alumnus, will lead the team.

photo of Lucira test kit

Lucira’s is the first combination home test for flu and covid cleared by the FDA

February 27, 2023

Lucira, a Berkeley spinout company founded by BioE alumni Debkishore Mitra and John Waldeisen, has created the first combination home test for flu and COVID to be cleared by the FDA. The agency granted emergency use authorization to the Lucira Covid-19 & Flu Test, which provides results in about 30 minutes from samples collected by a nasal swab.

Arkin speaking at SynBioBeta 2019

Uncovering the Secrets of the Smallest Phages

February 23, 2023

In a new paper in Nature Chemical Biology, Professor Adam Arkin and collaborator Vivek Mutalik report advances in understanding phage biology that bring us closer to using these small predators to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

photo of microfluidic device

Streamlined detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in saliva

August 30, 2022

Patrick Hsu’s lab has developed an RNA-extraction-free test for rapid viral detection using saliva via a microfluidic device. The fast, accurate, and portable prototype shows potential as a point-of-care system to support frequent, on-site molecular diagnostics. This work was the August 2022 cover story for Nature Biomedical Engineering.

CDC image of coronavirus

Human lung proteins can advance or thwart SARS-CoV-2 infections

July 28, 2022

A study led by Prof Patrick Hsu has identified specific proteins within our bodies that can promote or protect us from SARS-CoV-2 infections, potentially opening the door to new antiviral therapies. Notably, they showed that mucins — the main component of mucus found in the lungs — seem to help block the SARS-CoV-2 virus from entering cells.

photo of Prof Head-Gordon

Head-Gordon Pursuing AI-driven Drug Discovery at New NIH Center

June 30, 2022

Professor Teresa Head-Gordon will continue the machine learning COVID-19 research spurred by a 2020 Digital Transformation Institute grant, with the Midwest Antiviral Drug Discovery Center for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern, one of nine new centers announced by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on May 18, 2022.

CRISPR-Chip named 2021 Top 10 Innovation by The Scientist

December 2, 2021

Developed by former BioE postdoc Kiana Aran, the CRISPR-Chip now in use in Cardea Bio’s CRISPR-SNP-Chip has been named one of 2021’s Top 10 Innovations by The Scientist magazine. The new chip is the first device capable of detecting single base differences in DNA without generating millions of copies of the DNA first.

Artwork courtesy of Margaret L. Liu, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine

Using two CRISPR enzymes, a COVID diagnostic in only 20 minutes

August 5, 2021

Patrick Hsu, Liana Lareau and Daniel Fletcher have collaborated on a new rapid COVID test that rivals the sensitivity of the gold-standard qRT-PCR testing, with results in less than an hour.