Bioengineering News
PhD student Anjali Gopal has been named to the Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) 2021-22 class of the Fellowship for Ending Bioweapons Programs. Gopal is a member of Professor Amy Herr’s lab, is actively interested in emerging technology policy, and aims to leverage her scientific training for pandemic preparedness and bioweapons prevention initiatives.
The 2021 Biodesign Immersion Experience, an intensive summer of training in needs finding and the engineering design process, has wrapped up their work with final project presentations after six weeks of team project work. The Blue Team and Gold Team both tackled challenges to healthcare in low resource settings, partnering with individuals and institutions across the world. The BIE is funded by an NIH R25 grant. Read all about the experience at their summer blog.
The Rose Hills Innovator Program supports distinguished early-career faculty at UC Berkeley interested in developing highly innovative research programs in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math. The program provides seed support for projects with an exceptionally high scientific promise that may generate significant follow-on funding. Congratulations to Professor Liana Lareau, named a 2021 Rose Hills Innovator.
Bioengineering undergraduate Bryan Wong and his team took third place in the “Berkeley Ventures, Berkeley Values” pitch competition, a recent contest by the Berkeley Startup Cluster focused on ideas to support diversity, equity, and inclusion. Wong pitched Belli Meats, aiming to boost the popularity of faux meats in other cultures with their plant-based pork belly, a product that mimics the real thing with defined layers and distinct meat and fat sections.
New research from Michael Yartsev’s lab shows that the ability to focus on the location where we will be in the near future may be a key characteristic of the mammalian brain’s built-in navigation system. Lab members wirelessly tracked the brain activity of Egyptian fruit bats as they flew throughout a custom flight room. The study, which opens many questions about how we process our movement in time and space, appeared online Thursday, July 8, in the journal Science.
Congratulations to Prof Aaron Streets, winner of the second annual Shu Chien Early Career lecturer competition at the UC Systemwide Bioengineering symposium.
Tammy Hsu, founder of synthetic biology startup Huue, has been named to the MIT Technology Review 35 Under 35 list for 2021 for developing an environmentally friendly process to create indigo dye using microbes. Tammy is a 2019 PhD graduate from Professor John Dueber’s lab.
Congratulations to BioE PhD alumna Kate Rosenbluth, founder of Cala Health, named to Forbes’ list of “52 Women-Led Startups Driving The Future Of HealthTech And FemTech”. Cala Health creates non-invasive wearable neuromodulation therapies for patients living with chronic diseases.
Professor Patrick Hsu and collaborators have published a 1 year retrospective describing what they learned from starting a Fast Grants process for rapid COVID research funding, and the need for more models and experimentation in science funding. The article was published in Future.
BioE and Materials Science MEng capstone students used Finite Element Analysis to determine if less-invasive hip implants will be superior in reducing stress shielding and preventing unnecessary bone loss while maintaining functionality.
Professor Amy Herr is the Executive Director of the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub (BBH), a new campus initiative that aims to launch world-changing startups to solve pressing technical problems. BBH and it’s associated Bakar Labs incubator will open this fall in a renovated Woo Hon Fai Hall, a space where campus scholars and startup founders will work at the convergence of life and physical sciences — including engineering and data sciences — to transform academic research into viable companies that improve the world.
Leyla Kabuli, EECS and Music major, has been awarded the 2021 University Medal, Berkeley’s highest honor for a graduating senior. In addition to her many other pursuits, Leyla has been a researcher in Professor Steven Conolly’s lab for the past three years, working on magnetic particle imaging.
Congratulations to PhD alumna Michelle Khine (2005), appointed the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education at UC Irvine. Michelle is also their director of Faculty Innovation and founding director of the BioENGINE (BioENGineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship) program.
Ricardo Juarez Martinez, current MEng candidate studying Bioengineering with a focus on Biomaterials and Medical Device Design, shares his vision for innovation and inclusivity in the medical device space.
Congratulations to BioE MEng student Diego Espinoza, winner of the 2021 Fung Institute Mission Award for his capstone project, “MEDiRoller: Revolutionizing Low-Cost Vaccine and Drug Delivery in Low-Resource Communities.” The award goes to the team best exemplifying the mission of the institute: Creating inclusive leaders who solve the world’s problems through innovation, technology, and collaboration across boundaries.
Congratulations to BioE MEng student Omokhowa Agbojo who received the 2021 Fung Institute Technical Leadership Capstone Award for his project, “Harnessing Life Cycle Assessment as a Decision-Making Tool for Environmentally Conscious Design of Cell Therapy Manufacturing Processes.”
MTM alumnus Joshua Young Yang, co-founder of Nephrosant, is featured in Poets & Quants as one of the “2021 Best & Brightest MBAs.” Joshua is graduating from Stanford Business School and has founded another startup, Glyphic Biotechnologies.
Professor Irina Conboy’s lab is a world leader in research to slow and reverse the effects of physical aging. Recently, Conboy was interviewed in a LongevityTechnology story, “Can CRISPR be used to diagnose aging?” And her work on the controversial issue of using young blood to rejuvenate was featured in the article “Young blood to…
This MEng capstone team of bioengineering and mechanical engineering students has designed the I-OPener Tube Shunt, a low-cost patient-specific device which accurately regulates intraocular pressure (IOP) using two degradable blockers encased within a microfluidic chamber to improve the failure rate of tube shunt surgery for glaucoma patients.
BioE MEng student Khowa Agbojo talks about her career transition into bioengineering and desire to create opportunities for people in the developing world.
Cell interactions contribute to central nervous system pathology, but techniques to define these interactions are limited. In a publication in Science, Professor Iain Clark’s lab describes a new method that determines the molecular phenotypes and connections between cells in vivo. This technique allows them to identify new therapeutic targets that disrupt inflammatory crosstalk in experimental autoimmunity, and potentially, in neurologic disorders like Multiple Sclerosis.
The scientists at Berkeley Lab who have pioneered the infinitely-recyclable plastic, PDK, are collaborating with Professor Jay Keasling to design a process for producing PDK polymers using precursor ingredients made through synthetic biology instead of industrial chemicals, for an eco-friendly full lifecycle product.
An MEng capstone team of bioengineers and mechanical engineers designed a level-controlled cooling bath to precisely freeze biomaterials as they are printed, providing the bioink with the structural integrity needed to support larger structures and ensuring living cellular material is preserved.
The FDA has authorized the first single-use, PCR-quality, over the counter COVID-19 test kit, made by alumni startup Lucira!
Professor Amy Herr has been appointed to the Schmidt Science Fellows Program Academic Council. The Fellows program fuels interdisciplinary discoveries by providing cross-disciplinary training to promising postdoctoral scholars. As a Council member, Herr will be responsible for mentoring groups of Fellows on career and personal development topics and providing advice to the whole Fellowship community in her specific area of expertise.