Bioengineering News

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Lareau named MTI Innovator

May 6, 2025

Professor Liana Lareau is recognized for her revolutionary approach to treat retinitis pigmentosa and other dominant genetic diseases by combining CRISPR prime editing with machine learning.

Gustinvil named Outstanding GSI

May 6, 2025

Bioengineering PhD student Lordean Gustinvil will receive a 2024-25 Outstanding GSI Award from the UC Berkeley campus. Awards are given to the best GSIs of the year, nominated by the course instructor.

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Indigenous knowledge helps biotech find new drugs. This grad student wants those companies to give back.

May 6, 2025

Bioengineering doctoral student Maria Astolfi and her colleagues argue for a new type of partnership with indigenous peoples to create a more ethical bioeconomy.

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The not-so-secret life of gut bacteria

April 29, 2025

Computational modeling from Mofrad Lab gives us a peek inside these important microbial communities.

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Congratulations NSF Fellows!

April 14, 2025

Congratulations to our new NSF Graduate Research Fellows! Among the winners are current PhD students Ashley Qin; incoming PhD students Erin Ahern and Steven Robles Blasini; graduating undergraduates Monica Mendoza, Safaa Mouline and Arvind Swamynathan; and undergraduate alumni Jacob Bryan, Emily Huynh, and Elaine Tong. Well done!

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BioE ranked #4 in nation

April 8, 2025

Our PhD program in bioengineering has been ranked #4 in the United States by the latest US News & World Report graduate schools ranking! Berkeley tied with Duke and Stanford for the #4 spot. 

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Messersmith’s AsparaGlue named East Bay Innovation Awardee

March 31, 2025

Berkeley startup AsparaGlue, founded on science by Professor Phil Messersmith and postdoc Subhajit Pal, won an East Bay Innovation Award for their bioinspired surgical superglue.

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Aaron Streets named AIMBE Fellow

March 31, 2025

Professor Aaron Streets has been named to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Streets was selected for “developing innovative technology to elucidate genome regulation with single-cell and molecule resolution, and for impactful leadership to diversify bioengineering.

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Messersmith named AAAS Fellow

March 27, 2025

Bioengineering Chair Phillip Messersmith has been named to the 2024 class of fellows elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of the world’s largest general scientific societies and publisher of the Science family of journals.

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Feature: Aaron Streets’ Lab

March 5, 2025

Check out this video highlight of Professor Aaron Streets’ research, by the Pew Charitable Trust.

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Pivot Bio is using microbial nitrogen to make agriculture more sustainable

February 20, 2025

Co-founded by BioE alumnus Karsten Temme, Pivot is bringing cleaner nitrogen to American farmland.

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AI can now model and design the genetic code for all domains of life with Evo 2

February 20, 2025

Research led by Professor Patrick Hsu has produced Evo 2, the largest AI model in biology to date, which can accurately predict the effects of all types of genetic mutations.

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David Schaffer Elected to NAE

February 11, 2025

Congratulations to David Schaffer, Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Bioengineering and Molecular & Cell Biology, on his election to the National Academy of Engineering!

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BlotSeq single cell sequencing – animated!

February 7, 2025

BioE postdoc Trinh Lam’s animated video explains how Herr Lab’s BlotSeq single-cell tool uses sequencing data to guide protein selection without the need to predefine targets, making the process more flexible.

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MTM + NASA = Success

February 7, 2025

A team of Master of Translational Medicine students partnered with NASA to find the perfect applications for their microfabrication technology.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.