Bioinstrumentation

Recent news:

Tony Consiglio, Alan Maida and Boris Rubinsky in their Etcheverry Hall lab. (Photo by Adam Lau/Berkeley Engineering)

Cool it down

June 11, 2024

How isochoric preservation can protect food, organs — and even the planet. Professor Boris Rubinsky discusses the state of the art in cryogenics and preservation.

photo of Yartsev near trees

Yartsev wins Boehringer Ingelheim FENS Research Award 2024

May 28, 2024

The Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) has selected Professor Michael Yartsev for the 2024 Boehringer Ingelheim FENS Research Award, given in recognition of outstanding and innovative work from all areas of neuroscience. The award will be presented at the FENS Forum conference in Vienna.

photo of Dueber in lab coat working at lab bench

Berkeley’s ecosystem of innovation, entrepreneurship combats climate change

May 17, 2024

Professors John Dueber and David Schaffer are featured in this article highlighting campus research and entrepreneurship in sustainability.

Rubinsky Lab project wins Big Ideas award

May 9, 2024

A project supervised by Professor Boris Rubinsky and run by MCB/ME/EECS students Maxwell Johnson and Valentin Astie, has been selected as a Big Ideas Winner and will receive a $5,000 award. The MEGAN Protocol is developing a neuro-haptic AI-based device technology that has the ability to detect the onset of Parkinson disease years before the…

image of small fruit bat hanging upside down in the lab

What bats can teach us about the evolution of human speech

March 1, 2024

In a paper in the journal Science, a team led by Professor Michael Yartsev’s lab identified the part of the brain in Egyptian fruit bats that controls vocalizations and found that it contains very similar neural wiring to the part of the human brain that controls speech.

photo of microfluidic chip

Microfluidics: Biology’s Liquid Revolution

February 26, 2024

Professor Aaron Streets was featured in this overview on the potential of microfluidics in The Scientist magazine.

photograph of coral in the ocean, from the Smithsonian Institute

Rubinsky’s coral preservation work featured on PBS News

February 8, 2024

Professor Emeritus Boris Rubinsky’s isochoric vitrification method of preserving coral samples in suspended animation is part of recent emergency efforts to save dying coral reefs. The method is being used by the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.

cover of Time Magazine Best Inventions of 2023 issue

Two alumni innovations named to Time 2023 Best Inventions

November 2, 2023

Two PhD alumni have innovations named to the Time Magazine 200 Best Inventions of 2023 list. The Cala kIQ, developed by Cala Health, founded by alumna Kate Rosenbluth, is a wearable device that assists patients with Essential Tremor and Parkinson’s. Proven 40 OS is a fertilizer using naturally occurring microbes to reduce emissions and pollution while producing higher crop yields – developed by Pivot Bio, founded by alumnus Karsten Temme.

photograph of coral in the ocean, from the Smithsonian Institute

New Technique Could Facilitate Rapid Cryopreservation of All Coral Species

August 25, 2023

Research by Professor Emeritus Boris Rubinsky, in collaboration with Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) and Texas A&M, has achieved a breakthrough in the fight to save the world’s coral reefs from climate change annihilation. The researchers successfully cryopreserved and revived entire coral fragments, opening the door to collecting and preserving coral fragments easily and rapidly at an urgent moment for coral worldwide.