Head-Gordon Pursuing AI-driven Drug Discovery at New NIH Center

photo of Prof Head-Gordon

Professor Teresa Head-Gordon will continue the machine learning COVID-19 research spurred by a 2020 Digital Transformation Institute grant, with the Midwest Antiviral Drug Discovery Center for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern, one of nine new centers announced by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on May 18, 2022.

Read More

Schaffer named Executive Director of QB3

portrait of Schaffer

David Schaffer, PhD, a University of California, Berkeley professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, bioengineering, and molecular and cell biology, who holds over 50 patents and whose research has spawned eight companies to commercialize stem cell and gene therapies, has been appointed the next executive director of QB3.

Read More

Messersmith receives Bakar Fellows Spark Award

messersmith

Congratulations to Professor Phillip Messersmith, one of seven new recipients of the 2022 Bakar Fellows Spark Award, designed to accelerate faculty-led research and produce tangible, positive societal impact through commercialization. Messersmith is developing a regenerative therapy for the intestinal ulcers that accompany inflammatory bowel disease.

Read More

Pruitt named 2022 Brown Engineering Alumni Medalist

Pruitt

Professor Lisa Pruitt is one of two 2022 recipients of the Brown Engineering Alumni Medal, recognizing exceptional records of accomplishment by Brown alumni in their engineering careers. Pruitt received her Ph.D. from Brown and joined the faculty of Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley in 1993, later becoming a joint professor in the Department of Bioengineering.

Read More

Berkeley’s Bakar BioEnginuity Hub opens its doors

photo of grand opening crowd

UC Berkeley this week celebrated the grand opening of the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub (BBH), the campus’s bold new home for research and innovation. BBH owes much of its success to founding Director Amy Herr and current Director David Schaffer, both BioE Professors. Nearly 20 startups have already moved into the space, several led by bioengineering alumni.

Read More

Dan Fletcher to lead the Blum Center

photo of Fletcher

Dan Fletcher will be the next director of the The Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley. The Blum Center supports research innovation for underserved and low-resource areas in the U.S. and abroad, taking an interdisciplinary approach to developing and supporting the knowledge, technologies, and people to build a more sustainable and equitable world. Fletcher is known for his global perspective and dedication to improving health conditions in low-resource areas, especially through development and refinement of the CellScope, a portable mobile phone-based microscopy platform.

Read More

Kumar and Schaffer discover how biomaterials regulate stem cell neurogenesis in 3D

drawing of cell stiffness mechanism

Engineered biomaterials are increasingly used to expand and differentiate stem cells for technological and therapeutic applications. A major open question in the field is how the mechanical properties of material scaffolds regulate stem cell differentiation, especially in complex 3D geometries like those found in tissue. In a collaborative study published in Science Advances, the labs of Sanjay Kumar and David Schaffer have discovered a 3D-specific molecular mechanism through which mechanical inputs act through the transcription factor Egr1 to determine how efficiently neural stem cells turn into neurons.

Read More

Amy Herr named CTO for Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network

photo of Herr

Bioengineering professor Amy Herr has been named the inaugural Chief Technology Officer of the newly established Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network. Formed in December 2021 by the co-founders of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the Network is a 10-year effort to develop the science and technologies to observe, measure, and analyze human biology in action. Modeled on the success of the San Francisco-based CZ Biohub, new Biohubs will be created to bring together leading scientific and technology institutions with the goal of pursuing grand scientific challenges.

Read More

Conolly and Murthy win Bakar Prize

photos of Conolly and Murthy

Professors Steven Conolly and Niren Murthy are two of the four 2022 winners of the 2022 Bakar Prize. The prize is given annually to former Bakar Fellows to provide additional resources to ensure a successful transition of their technology from academic research to industry applications.

Read More