Landry selected for inaugural Philomathia Prize
Assistant Professor Markita del Carpio Landry of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering has been named the inaugural recipient of the Philomathia Prize. The prize recognizes demonstrated excellence and future potential of a UC Berkeley faculty member’s research. Landry’s Philomathia-funded project intends to image neuropeptide signaling with near-infrared microscopy, which would enable exploring the role of these newly visible neurochemical signals in autism spectrum disorders.
Congratulations 2022 graduates!
Congratulations to our new PhD graduates, hooded at the Berkeley commencement ceremony on May 19.Check out our photos here
Nadia Ayad wins 2022 Outstanding Student Leader award
Congratulations Nadia Ayad, inaugural recipient of the Outstanding Student Leader of the Year award from UCSF Student Life. Nadia was recognized for her work leading the student group BE-STEM, as well as her work developing initiatives to apply justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion via the GRAD 210 course, and her phenomenal commitment to leadership in this area.
She is currently a student in the Weaver Lab at UCSF working on understanding the role of contractility in BMP signaling with a gastrulation model of hESCs colonies.
Berkeley commencement features two BioE speakers
Both the keynote and student speakers at the 2022 UC Berkeley doctoral commencement ceremony are bioengineers! Recent alumna Sally Winkler, now a research scientist at AbbVie, will give the student address, and Ann Lee-Karlon, BS alumna and COO of Altos Labs, will deliver the keynote. The ceremony on May 18 will be webcast live.
Sirota, Garmire, Lam elected to AIMBE Fellows
Congratulations to graduate group faculty member Marina Sirota, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at UCSF, and alumni Lana Garmire, Associate Professor at the University of Michigan, and Wilbur Lam, Professor at Georgia Tech. All were elected as 2022 members of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows.
Congratulations new NSF Fellows!
Congratulations to bioengineers receiving new NSF Graduate Research Fellowships! Our winners are current PhD students Deniz Akpinaroglu, Joana Cabrera, Joy Chen, Benjamin Lesch, Alvince Pongos, Caleb Rux, Gabriel Sturm, and Jazmin Velazquez, and incoming PhD students Maple Chen, Russell Ro and Esther Sim. Great work!
Now fully complete, human genome reveals new secrets
Nearly 20 years after the sequencing of the human genome, a large team of researchers has finally filled in the remaining few percent of unsequenced DNA, providing the first complete, gapless human genome. First author of many of the suite of papers is Nicolas Altemose, 2021 bioengineering PhD and current postdoc with co-author Professor Aaron Streets.
Our program ranks #4 in the US!
The UC Berkeley – UCSF Graduate Program in Bioengineering has once again been ranked 4th in the nation by US News & World Report!
Congratulations Outstanding GSIs!
Congratulations to Outstanding GSI Award Winners for 2021-22 from Berkeley BioE courses: Erin Akins, Gabriela Lomeli, Amanda Meriwether and Vivien Tran! The UC Berkeley Outstanding GSI Awards are given to the best GSIs of the year, nominated by the course instructor.
Scientists Reveal “Rosetta Stone” of Immune Cell Function
A team of researchers led by Bioengineering graduate program faculty member Alex Marson has adapted a variation of the CRISPR system to test every gene in the genome and rapidly discover genes that can be “turned on” in human immune cells to enhance their functions. This new tool gives them a more thorough and rapid way to discover genes that play a role in immune cell biology than previously possible.
Desai named new Dean of Engineering at Brown
With pride and sadness we announce that Professor Tejal Desai has accepted an appointment as the next Dean of Engineering at Brown University. Desai is an alumna of our own PhD program, former longtime chair of the Graduate Program and the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences at UCSF, and inaugural director of UCSF’s Health Innovations Via Engineering (HIVE) initiative. Congratulations to both Tejal and Brown, who have a remarkable future ahead!
Thirteen faculty named Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigators
Congratulations to graduate program faculty members named to the second cohort of Chan Zuckerberg Biohub investigators: Ed Chang, Dan Fletcher, Zev Gartner, Amy Herr, Bo Huang, Tanja Kortemme, Liana Lareau, Hao Li, Aashish Manglik, Rada Savic, Seth Shipman, Aaron Streets, and Laura Waller. Congratulations also to BioE alumnus Stanley Qi, now a professor at Stanford.
NHS begins use of BioE-pioneered Nanoknife
Non Thermal Irreversible Electroporation treatment, developed by Bioenginering and Mechanical Engineering professor Boris Rubinsky, is now the technology behind the Nanoknife. Licensed from Berkeley by AngioDynamics, the Nanoknife uses electric currents to quickly and easily reach remote tumors in prostate cancer. University College London Hospital was recently the first hospital to use the treatment in the British National Health Service.
Engineered bacteria could boost corn yields
Bacteria isolated from the roots of a corn plant able to break the bonds between two nitrogen atoms could help minimize the use of fertilizer in farming, according to a new study by Pivot Bio, founded by BioE alumnus Karsten Temme.
Project to Connect African and U.S. Materials Scientists Receives Google Award for Inclusion Research
Graduate student Kwasi Amofa is one of the leaders of the Joint Undertaking for an African Materials Institute – Open Computing Facility (JUAMI-OCF), an effort to connect African scientists to state-of-the-art computing tools for materials discovery and innovation on a free-to-access Google Cloud platform.
Weaver wins BMES CMBE Shu Chien Achievement Award
Congratulations to Professor Valerie Weaver, named the 2022 BMES CMBE Shu Chien Achievement Awardee. This is the most prestigious honor bestowed by the BMES Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Special Interest Group, recognizing an individual who has made exceptional contributions to the field, including groundbreaking scientific advances, the development of support programs, mentoring and training, and the advancement of diversity and inclusivity.
CRISPRing the microbiome is just around the corner
UC Berkeley scientists led by bioengineering graduate faculty members Jennifer Doudna and Jill Banfield have found a way to add or modify genes within a community of many different species simultaneously, opening the door to what could be called “community editing.”
Microbes provide sustainable hydrocarbons for petrochemical industry
Researchers from Berkeley professor Michelle Chang’s lab have engineered microbes to make hydrocarbon chains that can be deoxygenated more easily and using less energy — paving the way for more sustainable microbial production of petrochemicals.
2021 Highly Cited Researchers
This week four Bioengineering Graduate Program faculty were named to Clarivate’s (Web of Science) 2021 Highly Cited Researchers list: Jill Banfield, Jennifer Doudna, Jay Keasling, and Valerie Weaver.
The greener route to indigo blue
Alumna Tammy Hsu is finding a way to produce fabric dye with a lower environmental impact – feature article in Nature online.
Could liposomes be the unsung heroes of the pandemic?
In a new study, Lydia Sohn’s lab attached SARS-CoV-2 “spike” proteins to the surface of liposomes, creating lab-made mimics of the deadly virus which the researchers call “spike-liposomes.” These spike-lipsomes can be used to test the efficacy of neutralizing antibodies that could potentially be used to treat COVID-19 patients. BioE graduate student Thomas Carey is a co-author.
Rubinsky’s NanoKnife on the news
Irreversible Electroporation therapy, pioneered by Berkeley Prof Emeritus Boris Rubinsky, is not at work in the clinical world as the NanoKnife. Learn more from this newscast for Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month.
Best Inventions of 2021: Huue
Congratulations BioE startup Huue and founder PhD alumna Tammy Hsu! Huue’s process for creating environmentally friendly indigo dye through synthetic biology has been named one of Time Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2021.
New study of the brain’s circuitry will track Parkinson’s disease from its origins
Berkeley neuroscientist Yang Dan will help conduct an ambitious $9 million project exploring how the circuitry in the brain progressively goes awry in patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Dan brings her expertise as an acclaimed sleep scientist to an international team of investigators recently awarded the funding over the next three years by the Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) initiative.
Desai wins Chancellor’s Award for Advancement of Women
Tejal Desai, graduate program faculty member and alumna, received the 2021 UCSF Chancellor’s Award for Advancement of Women this fall for demonstrating “outstanding commitment and service to the advancement of women beyond the scope of their job, area of research, or training.” Congratulations Tejal!