Bioengineering News
Bolt Threads, founded by PhD alumnus David Breslauer to produce textiles through synthetic biology, has been named one of the 10 most innovative fashion and style companies of 2021 by Fast Company. They are recognized for their new Mylo product, a leather substitute made from fungal mycelium.
This project by a team of Bioengineering and Mechanical Engineering MEng students uses machine learning techniques to allow the EvoWalk to analyze patients’ gait patterns and provide a personalized stimulation algorithm that most efficiently improves their walking outcome.
Tim Guertin, CEO Emeritus of Varian Medical Systems and BioE supporter, will receive a 2021 Campanile Excellence in Achievement Award. Guertin (EECS ’72) is extraordinarily committed to improving healthcare locally and globally. He has endowed the Timothy and Karen Guertin Chair in Bioengineering and graduate fellowship, and his philanthropy and active involvement helped the department to establish our first Medical Advisory Board.
Master of Engineering students in BioE and Mechanical Engineering have developed GaitTrac, providing wireless, real-time gait analysis for clinical gait diagnosis through seven custom motion sensors.
Non-biodegradeable, petroleum-derived, polyacrylic acid is used in everything from detergents to industrial fluids. Lygos, an alumni spinoff company that creates environmentally friendly chemicals through synthetic biology, has formed a partnership with NanoChem Solutions to produce an alternative: polyaspartate polymers. Together they will develop a process to make aspartic acid, the raw material for the polymers, from sugar via fermentation.
Check out an interview with PhD alumnus and Bolt Threads Co-Founder David Breslauer on the Business For Good podcast!
Professor Liana Lareau has been co-leading the Innovative Genomics Institute effort to monitor mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the local community. The team’s rapid sequencing turnaround is crucial for tracking the spread of new variants, including the more infectious B.1.1.7 recently detected in two cases at Berkeley.
Bioengineering Master of Engineering students discovering inaccurate extracted information from unstructured Clinical notes using Natural Language Processing.
Professor Aaron Streets’ lab has developed a novel technique for unraveling and imaging lengthy strands of DNA.
Check out this video interview with Professor Dan Fletcher on his collaboration with CRISPR researchers to produce a rapid COVID-19 test using a smartphone camera.
An international research team including Professor Teresa Head-Gordon have investigated why cages can increase the catalytic activity of enclosed molecules. Using terahertz spectroscopy and complex computer simulations, they showed that water encapsulated in a tiny cage has special properties that are structurally and dynamically distinct from any known phase of water.
Congratulations to three bioengineering alumni named to the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Joshua Yang (MTM 2016) and Robert Chen (BS 2013) were named in Healthcare: Yang for his work on developing non-invasive tools to measure kidney injuries through startup company Nephrosant, and Chen for designing therapies for undernourished children, using links between certain gut bacteria and stunted growth. Joshua Nixon (BS 2016) and co-founder were named in the Social Impact list for founding Prime Roots, a company developing plant-based meat and seafood alternatives.
Professor Phil Messersmith’s lab has collaborated on a new chemical process that converts polyethylene plastic into a strong and valuable adhesive, and could make plastic bag recycling economically worthwhile.
Adam Arkin is one of the leaders of a new approach for studying which bacterial receptors phages exploit to infect cells, and what cellular mechanisms the bacteria use to respond to a phage infection. These microscopic battles have implications for medicine development, agricultural research, and climate science.
BioE graduate student Connor Tsuchida talks about the experience of working in Nobel prize-winning labs.
Fletcher Lab, in collaboration with the Gladstone Institutes and Doudna Lab, have developed a new CRISPR-based COVID-19 diagnostic test that, with the help of a smartphone camera, can provide a positive or negative result in 15 to 30 minutes. This test also gives an estimate of viral load, or the number of virus particles in a sample, which can help doctors monitor the progression of a COVID-19 infection and estimate how contagious a patient might be.
PhD alumni Lily Peng (2012) and Kate Rosenbluth (2009) have been named to the 2020 Fortune Magazine “40 Under 40”, an annual list of 40 young professionals of exceptional talent and influence in their fields. Peng, now Product Manager at Google Health, aims to bring health care to the masses through the use of artificial intelligence. She has personally designed algorithms including the firm’s diabetes-related eye disease detection program. Rosenbluth, Founder and CEO of Cala Health, has designed an FDA-cleared wrist device that eases hand tremors for the 7 million Americans who suffer from essential tremors.
Congratulations Professor Sanjay Kumar, named to the 2020 class of Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Kumar was recognized for his “distinguished contributions to the field of bioengineering, particularly the development of biomaterial and single-cell technologies to investigate mechanobiological signaling in health and disease.”
PROVEN, the world’s first microbial biofertilizer for cereal crops, has been named one of the 100 Best Inventions of 2020 by Time Magazine. Developed by PivotBio, a BioE spinout company founded by Karsten Temme, PhD 2010, the product replaces synthetic solutions with nitrogen-fixing microbes, which capture nitrogen from the air and convert it into a form that plants can use.
Congratulations to Associate Professor Moriel Vandsburger, the first holder of our new Timothy and Karen Guertin Chair in Bioengineering. Timothy Guertin (B.S. alum, EECS) is the former Chief Executive Officer of Varian Medical Systems, a member of the Board of Directors at Teradyne Inc., and Chair of the Global Access to Cancer Care foundation, which works to expand the availability of modern cancer care in developing countries. The Guertins are passionate supporters of biomedical research and global access to quality healthcare, and have endowed this faculty chair to provide additional support to an early career professor pursuing promising research.
Despite physical separation, our students and faculty are finding new ways to pursue collaboration, team projects, and hands-on education. Our BioE 192 Senior Capstone Design course is one of the innovative efforts featured for their ability to pivot to remote learning.
On Tuesday the first rapid, at-home COVID-19 test was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration. The test, made by BioE-founded company Lucira, uses their loop mediated amplification reaction process, a molecular nucleic acid amplification technology, in a battery-powered standalone unit. Rather than detecting antibodies, their test is designed to detect whether an individual is shedding the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The company was developing this technology for an at-home influenza test before rapidly pivoting to address COVID-19. Lucira is led by Debkishore Mitra (PhD 2013), who founded the company with John Waldeisen (PhD 2012).
Former BioE postdoc Kiana Aran, now professor at KGI, explains the one-year journey of the CRISPR-Chip from academic publication in June 2019 to a flourishing product in 2020. Berkeley bioengineers, including professors Niren Murthy and Irina Conboy, co-authored the original research.
Professor Terry Johnson, also Faculty Director of the Berkeley Center for Teaching and Learning, joined the San Francisco Chronicle’s discussion of cheating during remote education.
Adam Arkin explains the latest research in synthetic and systems biology on the Science is Fun! podcast.