The Department of Bioengineering is the home and hub of Berkeley's efforts to apply engineering tools and principles to living things. Our faculty apply their diverse perspectives and skills to the spectrum of challenges facing human health, the environment, and biological research.

Areas of Special Impact

Faculty Research Areas

close up photo of microfluidic device

Bioinstrumentation

Bioinstrumentation is one of the most familiar faces of bioengineering: the development of technologies and devices for affecting biological systems.
heart microchamber

Biomaterials & Nanotechnology

The design of biological and bio-inspired materials for the repair and construction of biological systems, biomaterials combines with nanotechnology to assemble materials and devices at the scale of proteins, DNA and other biomolecules.
Kumar lab 2017 skin cells

Cell & Tissue Engineering

Cell and tissue engineering studies how cells behave and accomplish their functions in order to direct cellular activities to perform useful biological tasks, while tissue engineering and regenerative medicine work toward the same goals at the larger scale of tissues, fluids and organs.

Computational Biology

Computational biology uses the techniques of computer programmers and data scientists to approach biological problems, and is becoming an increasingly critical factor in biological research and engineering.
closely cropped photo of researcher holding a petri dish with growths and markings

Systems & Synthetic Biology

The design and construction of parts, devices and systems from biological components, generally at the cellular and molecular scale, allows synthetic and systems biologists to build cells, microbes and biological networks to perform valuable functions.

News About: Faculty Research

Messersmith’s AsparaGlue named East Bay Innovation Awardee

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.

Aaron Streets named AIMBE Fellow

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.

Messersmith named AAAS Fellow

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.

Pivot Bio is using microbial nitrogen to make agriculture more sustainable

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

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

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.

David Schaffer Elected to NAE

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

BlotSeq single cell sequencing – animated!

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.

Yartsev wins Richard Lounsbery Award

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.

Bridge RNAs: ‘Holy Grail’ in Next-Gen Gene Editing Tech?

Patrick Hsu’s breakthrough discovery of bridge RNA gene editing tools is discussed on WebMD, with contributions from BioE alumnus Connor Tou.

Herr Lab Postdoc Wins AIP Best Paper

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).