Professor Kevin Healy and his postdoctoral researcher Amit Jha collaborated with Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology professor Andreas Stahl and Ph.D. student Kevin Tharp on their experiment to implant energy-burning brown fat into mice to stimulate weight loss.
research
Photonics breakthrough points to ultrafast DNA diagnostics
Professor Luke Lee’s lab has developed technology that promises to make the standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test cheaper, more portable, and many times faster by accelerating the heating and cooling of genetic samples with light.
Healy Lab grows beating human heart tissue from stem cells
Researchers in Professor Kevin Healy’s lab have developed a template for growing beating cardiac tissue from stem cells, creating a system that could serve as a model for early heart development and as a drug-screening tool to make pregnancies safer.
Anderson lab develops potential molecular lock and key for GMOs
Researchers in bioengineering professor Chris Anderson’s lab have used synthetic biology to develop an easy way to lock down bacteria, to contain its accidental spread. The work, led by recent BioE Ph.D. Gabriel Lopez, shows promise as a potential method of containing advances created through synthetic biology and genetic engineering.
Messersmith shows drug-induced regeneration in adult mice
Bioengineering professor Phillip Messersmith has co-authored groundbreaking research showing that a primitive form of tissue regeneration can be harnessed to achieve spontaneous tissue regeneration in adult mice, without the need for stem cells. The study findings were reported in Science Translational Medicine.
Dueber lab engineers opium poppy pathway
Researchers in professor John Dueber’s lab have taken us one step closer to producing more medications through synthetic biology by replicating some of the chemical processes of the opium poppy in yeast. Will DeLoache, bioengineering graduate student and study lead author, and collaborators, were able to synthesize the poppy compound reticuline from tyrosine, a derivative of glucose.
Conboy and Schaffer discover new drug to rejuvenate aging tissues
Bioengineering professors Irina Conboy and David Schaffer, have discovered a small-molecule drug that simultaneously revives old stem cells in the brains and muscles of mice. This is excellent news for anti-aging research, giving hope that there could exist a single intervention that rescues the function of multiple tissues throughout the body.
The many frontiers of synthetic biology
Synthetic biology applications from the astronomical to the anatomical were explored in the Spring 2015 Berkeley Engineer magazine.
Marriott lab finds uses for bioluminescent protein
Professor Gerard Marriott’s lab has found amazing applications for a new type of genetically encoded fluorescent protein that is found in a symbiont populating the light organ of the ponyfish. The uniquely low mass and long fluorescence lifetime of the protein make it potentially useful as a biosensor to carry out rapid, quantitative and proteome-wide analyses of specific protein interactions, or to screen for drugs designed to disrupt a specific protein complex in a living cell.