News

Researchers led by UC Berkeley Professor Michael Lustig have developed Displacement Spectrum MRI, an innovative imaging technique that traces blood flow sources ‘in reverse’ to study brain function and disease.

Congratulations to BioE PhD alumna Monica Kapil, the first woman ever named Alumna of the Year by the SJSU Mechanical Engineering Department!

Congratulations to first-year PhD student Chance Bowman, awarded one of only nineteen 2025 Hertz Foundation Fellowships! The highly prestigious Hertz Fellowship is among the oldest and most coveted awards in science and engineering graduate studies.

Bioengineering doctoral student Maria Astolfi and her colleagues argue for a new type of partnership with indigenous peoples to create a more ethical bioeconomy, one that will sustain indigenous biodiversity and bring these communities into science as equal partners.

The Guggenheim, one of the most prestigious fellowships in the country, provides unrestricted funding to pursue cutting-edge creative research. Landry plans to study how compounds extracted from plants used in Indigenous Bolivian medicine might have potential as treatments for nervous system disorders.

Congratulations to our new NSF Graduate Research Fellows! Among the winners are current PhD students Ashley Qin and incoming PhD students Erin Ahern and Steven Robles Blasini. Well done!

UC Berkeley Professor Phillip Messersmith, Chair of the Department of Bioengineering, has been named to the 2024 class of fellows elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Also named this year were PhD Alumni Karen Christman, Professor at UC San Diego, and Wilbur Lam, Professor at Emory University / Georgia Institute of Technology.

Devin Schoen and Benjamin Sipes are two of this year’s ten finalists in the UCSF Grad Slam competition. On April 2 each finalist will present their research in three minutes or less, in language accessible to a general audience, and the winner will go on to the UC Grad Slam. Attend in person or tune into the YouTube live stream to vote for the People’s Choice award!

BioE graduate student Jazmin Isabel Velazquez examines the unique paths graduate students take on the road to their PhD in this story based on her experience in the Healy and Rubinsky Labs.

Berkeley faculty Adam Arkin and Rikky Muller have received awards of over $20 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to pursue microbiome engineering and implantable biologic drug delivery.

Research by PhD student Ruming Cao has developed a new computational imaging tool for visualizing moving samples. Led by Professor Laura Waller, the neural space-time model (NSTM) uses a small, lightweight neural network to reduce motion artifacts and solve for the motion trajectories.

Three Bioengineering PhD students have been named Siebel Scholars of the class of 2025: Claire Hilburger, Eric Markley and Sakshi Shah. The Siebel Scholars program annually recognizes top students at the world’s leading graduate schools of bioengineering, business, computer science and energy science.

Mekhail Anwar receives up to $15 million from ARPA-H to develop a next-generation miniature scanner powerful enough to detect individual cancer cells during surgery.

Seth Shipman and his team have developed a more efficient way to make several precise edits simultaneously to human cells.

MD/PhD student Alice Tang has achieved first place in the 2024 AMIA Edward H. Shortliffe Doctoral Dissertation Awards, a prestigious honor for top doctoral dissertations that contribute to the science of informatics in any biomedical application domain. Tang’s work is on “Leveraging Clinical Data and Knowledge Networks to Derive Insights Into Alzheimer’s Disease.”

Congratulations to bioengineering students Devan Shah and Serena Tang, awarded 2024 Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Scholarships!

Researchers in Professor Mekhail Anwar’s lab have developed a prototype sensor that can monitor biological changes in the tissues of mice. The sensor may be able to monitor a patient’s response to treatment in real-time and lead to more effective, personalized treatment plans.

Researchers from Professor Grace Gu’s lab have demonstrated how a textured surface designed to mimic shark skin can reduce drag and mitigate flow-based noise, potentially opening the door to a new generation of more effective and efficient marine towed sonar arrays.

Pivot Bio, founded by alumnus Karsten Temme, is No. 47 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2024. Read how Pivot Bio is helping farmers generate more income while reducing emissions.

Congratulations to PhD alumnus Richard Novak, named to the 2024 class of Teermer Fellows! Fellows are first-time CEOs of early-stage or non-profit biotech & life science organizations who are committed to developing potentially life-changing treatments for patients; Novak is Co-Founder and CEO of Unravel Biosciences.

Congratulations to Ilina Bhaya-Grossman for winning the UCSF Grad Slam on April 3, 2024! The annual Grad Slam competition challenges PhD students to present a compelling presentation of their dissertation research in three minutes or less, using language that not only their peers but also non-specialists will understand. Each campus holds their own Grad Slam and send the winner to compete in a UC-wide Slam on May 3. You can check out her presentation online>>

Check out this profile of Shakked Halperin, PhD alumnus, founder of Bakar Labs tenant Replace Therapeutics.

Professor Preeya Khanna, member of the Bioengineering Graduate Program, is one of nine Berkeley faculty named 2024 Sloan Research Fellows, the largest number from any institution. The fellowship is among the most competitive and prestigious awards available to early-career scholars in North America.

Bioengineering PhD alumna Tejal Desai, former UCSF Professor of Bioengineering & Therapeutic Sciences and Co-Chair of the Graduate Program in Bioengineering, has been named to the National Academy of Engineering. Desai is now the Sorensen Family Dean of Engineering at Brown University.

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.