Congratulations to BioE PhD alumna Monica Kapil, the first woman ever named Alumna of the Year by the SJSU Mechanical Engineering Department!
Pivot Bio named one of the world’s most innovative companies
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.
Richard Novak named Class of 2024 Termeer Fellow
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.
Rewrite and Replace: Shakked Halperin, Serial Entrepreneur
Check out this profile of Shakked Halperin, PhD alumnus, founder of Bakar Labs tenant Replace Therapeutics.
Alumna Tejal Desai named to NAE
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.
6 MIND-BLOWING ASSISTIVE HEARING DEVICES COMING TO CES 2024
Hearing technology startup Concha Labs, founded by PhD alumna Amy Li, was featured in a USA Today article on exciting new Assistive Hearing Devices.
Tsuchida and Vasic in 30 Under 30
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 alumni innovations named to Time 2023 Best Inventions
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.
Wilbur Lam named to National Academy of Medicine
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.”
Alumni Li, Lupo and Ozhinsky Awarded $3.93M Grant to Develop Metabolic Imaging for Brain Cancer
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.
Vlassakis receives NIH New Innovator Award
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.
Berkeley alum creating a greener future for bluejeans
PhD alumna Tammy Hsu is using synthetic biology to produce environmentally friendly dyes for industry through her company, Huue.
Alumnus Teisseyre named COO at Hyperfine
Congratulations to PhD alumnus Tom Teisseyre, promoted to Chief Operating Officer at Hyperfine, Inc.! Hyperfine created the Swoop® system, the world’s first FDA-cleared portable magnetic resonance brain imaging system.
Alumna Li named 2023 RISE Founder
Congratulations to PhD alumna Amy Li, Founder & CEO of Concha Labs, named to the 2023 cohort of health innovators in the UCSF Rosenman Institute RISE program! RISE identifies promising entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds in health technology and provides top-notch mentorship from the vast UCSF network of advisors and strategic partners. Concha Labs battles hearing loss through a software that creates fully personalized hearing profiles.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Snacking for Science
BioE alumni startup PivotBio (Karsten Temme ’10), the leading nitrogen innovator in agriculture with a mission to replace synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, has launched Connect, a new line of snack foods grown by farmers using Pivot Bio’s microbial nitrogen instead of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.
Alumna Tammy Hsu named to Tech Review 35
Tammy Hsu, founder of synthetic biology startup Huue, has been named to the MIT Technology Review 35 Under 35 list for 2021 for developing an environmentally friendly process to create indigo dye using microbes. Tammy is a 2019 PhD graduate from Professor John Dueber’s lab.
Alumni News: Becoming a bioengineer, both at home and on campus
Bioe alumnus Lukasz Bugaj, now Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at UPenn, talks in this article about converting their hands-on undergraduate design course to remote and hybrid learning during COVID.
Bolt Threads: one of the 10 most innovative fashion and style companies of 2021
Bolt Threads, founded by PhD alumnus David Breslauer to produce textiles through synthetic biology, has been named one of the 10 most innovative fashion and style companies of 2021 by Fast Company. They are recognized for their new Mylo product, a leather substitute made from fungal mycelium.