Bioengineering News
Dan Fletcher, Amy Herr, Liana Lareau and Aaron Streets have been named to the second cohort of Chan Zuckerberg Biohub investigators. The Investigator Program, open to faculty members at Stanford University, UC San Francisco, and UC Berkeley, awards $1 million in unrestricted funds over five years to each Investigator, with the goal of building engaged, collaborative communities of Bay Area scientists to solve the biggest challenges in biomedicine.
Non Thermal Irreversible Electroporation treatment, developed by Bioenginering and Mechanical Engineering professor Boris Rubinsky, is now the technology behind the Nanoknife. Licensed from Berkeley by AngioDynamics, the Nanoknife uses electric currents to quickly and easily reach remote tumors in prostate cancer. University College London Hospital was recently the first hospital to use the treatment in…
Professor Irina Conboy has been appointed incoming Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research, published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.. Conboy is a leader in aging research, especially stem cell niche engineering and tissue repair.
BioE alumna Michelle Khine, biomedical engineering professor and associate dean for the Division of Undergraduate Education at UC Irvine, has been named one of six inaugural Samueli Scholars by the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute.
The Arc Institute was officially launched today with the goal of developing a new model for collaborative research that brings together world-class research with unconstrained funding to enable new discoveries that improve human health. UC Berkeley, Stanford and UCSF are founding scientific members, and bioengineering professor Patrick Hsu is a founding researcher.
Led by inaugural director Amy Herr, the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub is finishing up extensive renovations to Woo Hon Fai Hall and will open in February 2022. The remodeled landmark building, formerly the Berkeley Art Museum, pairs the Bakar Labs incubator with fellowships and programming for Berkeley students and researchers.
Congratulations to David Schaffer, pioneer in the use of engineered viruses to deliver gene therapies, just named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors! Schaffer is the Hubbard Howe Distinguished Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and Bioengineering.
Learn more about Professor Iain Clark in this profile from the Berkeley Science Review.
Master of Translational Medicine alumnus Steve Lee has been named to the Forbes 2022 30 Under 30 list in the social impact category! Steve and his brother Daniel founded Aura, an app that offers wellness and mental health coaching and resources.
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.
Sophia Sneddon is a current Berkeley MEng candidate studying Bioengineering. Here, she shares her aspirations to become an attorney, her passion for inclusivity, and her love for biking.
Alumna Tammy Hsu is finding a way to produce fabric dye with a lower environmental impact – feature article in Nature online.
What the only flying mammal can teach us about the brain:
Professor Michael Yartsev’s unique flight room and studies of the neural circuitry of Egyptian fruit bats are yielding fascinating insights into the capabilities of the mammalian brain — including navigation, communication, and language.
Congratulations BioE startup Huue and founder PhD alumna Tammy Hsu! Huue’s process for creating environmentally friendly indigo dye through synthetic biology has been named one of Time Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2021.
Congratulations to Dr. Kiana Aran, former bioengineering postdoc and collaborator, now a professor at the Keck Graduate Institute. Aran was named the Scientific Achievement Winner in the 2021 Nature Research Awards for Inspiring Women in Science for her work inventing the CRISPR-Chip.
Neuroscientists led by Michael Yartsev used wireless neural recording devices to track the brain activity of Egyptian fruit bats as they freely interacted in groups and occasionally vocalized to each other through high-pitched screeches and grunts. The study published in the journal Science provides the first glimpse into how the brains of social mammals process these types of complex group interactions.
Big congratulations to Abi Anbuchelvan, Vindhya Kilaru, Peter Sinnott, Aditya Subramanian, Cindy Tung, and Sharicka Zutshi, new 2021-22 Fung Fellows, and Isha Shah and Niki Shakouri who will be continuing as Honors Fellows. The Fellowship trains undergraduate students to develop tech solutions that address societal challenges.
Berkeley researchers, including Professor Jay Keasling, have for the first time engineered bacteria to produce a molecule that, until now, could only be synthesized in a laboratory. This advance opens the door to production of a broader range of chemicals from yeast and bacterial fermentation.
Cecil Chikezie, current Master of Engineering student in BioE, received a 2021 Mastercard Foundation Scholarship, which supports future leaders in Africa. In this article, MEng student and scholarship recipient, Cecil Chikezie, speaks about what it means to be a MasterCard Foundation Scholar and his long term bio-engineering goals of supporting the financial stability and respiratory health of Kenyan communities.
Congratulations Nathanial Huebsch, BS BioE 2003, now Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Huebsch has been named a 2021 Young Innovator by Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering!
Bats’ navigation system was designed by the world’s top engineer: evolution. A new effort in the lab of Michael Yartsev, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering and Neuroscience, to translate the bats’ neurological “rules of the road” into computational algorithms to guide development of navigation systems for driverless cars.
UC Berkeley’s Irina Conboy, Ph.D., is unlocking the keys to healthy longevity
Diablo Magazine features the Conboy Lab’s research on the aging process, and ways to reverse it.
Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Jay Keasling has been named a Distinguished Scientist Fellow by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Keasling was recognized for his “national scientific leadership in synthetic biology that has advanced DOE’s strategy in renewable energy, especially the realization of biofuels and bioproducts that enable biomanufacturing at scale and inspire and grow the U.S. bioeconomy,” according to the Office of Science award citation.
Five Bioengineering PhD students have been named Siebel Scholars of the class of 2022: Kristen Cotner, K.L. Barry Fung, Kazuomori Lewis, Alden Moss, and Soo Hyun Shin. The Siebel Scholars program annually recognizes top students at the world’s leading graduate schools of bioengineering, business, computer science and energy science.
Researchers led by Professor Emeritus Boris Rubinsky successfully revived human heart tissue after it had been preserved in a subfreezing, supercooled state for 1 to 3 days.