Alumna Kolar named to 30 Under 30

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Congratulations to bioengineering MEng alumna Brontë Kolar, named to the 2026 Forbes 30 Under 30! Kolar co-founded Zeon Systems, a company using natural language AI with intelligent robots to automate repetitive and time-consuming lab work.

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Herr wins Weill Neurohub Investigator Award

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A research project on “the protein code of brain aging: from molecules to mechanisms,” by Professor Amy Herr has been selected for a Weill Neurohub Investigator Award. The Investigators program funds top faculty to form cross-campus, interdisciplinary teams to explore, create, and test bold new concepts and technologies.

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Torres and Brener receive UCSF Mentoring Awards

headshots of Torres and Brener with text "Torres and Brener receive UCSF Awards for Excellence in Mentoring"

Congratulations to BioE PhD students Alonso Torres and Stephanie Brener! Torres received a 2026 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars at UCSF, and Brener and Honorable Mention.

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Joy Ahn named Outstanding Advisor

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Congratulations to bioengineering’s Master’s Programs Manager Joy Ahn!
Joy has been received a 2025 Excellence in Advising and Student Services Award for her outstanding support of our master’s students.

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Alice Tang named to 30 Under 30

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Congratulations to bioengineering MD/PhD candidate Alice Tang, named to the 2026 Forbes 30 Under 30! Tang has pioneered methods to analyze millions of health records using AI, uncovering revelations about complex diseases like Alzheimer’s. 

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Alumnus Connor Tou named Stat Wunderkind

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BioE alumnus Connor Tou (B.S. 2020) has been named a 2025 STAT Wunderkind by by STAT News – an award that honors early-career scientists whose creativity and perseverance are helping to reshape biomedical research and health care.

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Fletcher elected to National Academy of Medicine

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Professor Dan Fletcher has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine for his contributions to the mechanistic understanding of biological self-assembly and mechanotransduction, and his work developing mobile phone-based microscopy for remote diagnosis of infectious diseases. Election to the academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine.

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Keasling Named 2025 DOE/NAI Innovator of the Year

head and shoulders photo of Keasling in lab examining a flask of fluid. photo by JBEI

The Department of Energy and the National Academy of Inventors have honored Professor Jay Keasling with their 2025 Innovator of the Year Award, which goes to one DOE employee who has translated research into tangible impacts that have benefited society at large. Keasling is a pioneer in synthetic biology who leads a groundbreaking research program focused on engineering microorganisms to produce advanced biofuels and chemicals.

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UC Berkeley Awards $200K Venture Grant to HypO2Regen Therapeutics

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Professor Phil Messersmith and colleagues have launched HypO2Regen Therapeutics, a startup developing novel, disease-modifying therapeutics for chronic intractable inflammatory diseases, including the first cell-free stem cell treatment that induces true regeneration of damaged tissue. Their first effort takes aim at periodontitis, which affects over 300 million people worldwide.

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