News

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.

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.

Hearing technology startup Concha Labs, founded by PhD alumna Amy Li, was featured in a USA Today article on exciting new Assistive Hearing Devices.

Bioengineering graduate program core faculty Jill Banfield, Jennifer Doudna, Jay Keasling and Valerie Weaver have been named to Clarivate’s list of Highly Cited Researchers. Each researcher selected has authored multiple papers which rank in the top 1% by citations for their field(s) and publication year in the Web of Science™ over the past decade, and were further vetted for inclusion by experts in their field.

PhD alumni Connor Tsuchida and Ivana Vasic have both been named to the annual Forbes 30 Under 30 list for their achievements in Healthcare! Tsuchida has founded Crispr delivery startup Azalea Therapeutics, and Vasic is developing therapies to support the next generation of in vitro fertilization as founder of Vitra Labs.

Two Bioengineering 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, rechargeable device that sends electrical impulses from the wrist to the brain, to assist patients with Essential Tremor and Parkinson’s. Proven 40 OS is a fertilizer using naturally occurring microbes that live on a plant’s root system and release nitrogen to reduce emissions and pollution while producing higher crop yields – developed by Pivot Bio, founded by alumnus Karsten Temme.

PhD alumnus Wilbur Lam, now Professor of Pediatrics and Biomedical Engineering, Emory University and Georgia Tech, has been named one of the 2023 new members of the National Academy of Medicine. Lam was recognized for “outstanding contributions in point-of-care, home-based, and/or smartphone-enabled diagnostics that are changing the management of pediatric and hematologic diseases as well as development of microsystems technologies as research-enabling platforms to investigate blood biophysics. He also leads national/NIH efforts to assess diagnostic tests (including those for COVID-19) for the entire country.”

Five Bioengineering PhD students have been named Siebel Scholars of the class of 2024: Cindy Ayala, Ruiming Cao, Sita Srinivasan Chandrasekaran, Cameron Tadashi Kato, and Andre Lai. The Siebel Scholars program annually recognizes top students at the world’s leading graduate schools of bioengineering, business, computer science and energy science.

Three bioengineering PhD alumni, all of whom are now UCSF-affiliated faculty, have been awarded a $3.93 million Translational Team Science Award from the Department of Defense. Led by Yan Li, associate professor, Janine Lupo, professor, and Eugene Ozhinsky, assistant professor of the VA Advanced Imaging Research Center, the grant will support their efforts to create new, AI-based approaches that will enable direct translation of non-invasive metabolic MR imaging methods into clinical practice.

PhD student Connor Tsuchida is first author on a new paper in “Cell” from the Doudna and Ye labs, using single-cell analysis to look at chromosome loss after CRISPR-Cas9 editing using a broad range of guide RNAs. The authors suggest a protocol to prevent chromosome loss

PhD alumna Julea Vlassakis, now Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at Rice University, has been named a 2023 NIH Director’s New Innovator! These prestigious awards support early-career investigators with ambitious, unconventional project proposals demonstrating broad impact potential.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced that Berkeley ME professor Grace Gu has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the LLNL Early Career UC Faculty Initiative! Gu will receive up to $1 million in funding over five years to support a research project that seeks to advance AI-driven manufacturing for metal-ceramic composite structures.

PhD alumna Tammy Hsu is using synthetic biology to produce environmentally friendly dyes for industry through her company, Huue.

Berkeley Professor of Chemistry and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering has been given the 2024 Award for Creative Work in Fluorine Chemistry, sponsored by the American Chemical Society Division of Fluorine Chemistry!

Research from Professor Irina Conboy’s lab is on the cover of the journal “Aging” this week, highlighting their exciting new research in the measurement of biological age. Their work shows that commonly-used Elastic Net DNA methylation clocks have low accuracy, and present an alternative using noise-detecting cytosines, measuring the pressure of aging and disease on an organism. BioE PhD student Xiaoyue Mei is first author.

Nafisa Elghazali and Yasmin Graham are 2023-24 Graduate Diversity and Community Fellows! Dedicated to building healthier communities for grad students at Berkeley, fellows provide academic and professional support to peers, with a special focus on underrepresented students.