Professors Adam Abate and Iain Clark were able to analyze single cells harboring latent HIV using a technique that isolates single, infected cells as tiny amounts of blood move through their microfluidic devices. Their work was featured in Science news.
Foundational Rubinsky paper honored as 2nd most cited in ABME history
An article published by Professor Emeritus Boris Rubinsky in 2005 was the first to suggest irreversible electroporation as a potential method for minimally invasive surgical tissue ablation. Now, as the second most cited paper in ABME history, irreversible electroporation has been implemented in the clinic as an effective approach to eradicating unresectable tumors in over 50 clinical trials and has helped more than 5500 cancer patients.
Scientists Map Networks of Disease-Associated Immune Genes
Using new technologies to study thousands of genes simultaneously within immune cells, researchers led by bioengineering graduate group faculty member Alex Marson have created the most detailed map yet of how complex networks of genes function together. The new insights into how these genes relate to each other shed light on both the basic drivers of immune cell function and on immune diseases.
Supercharging Plants and Soils to Remove Carbon from the Atmosphere
A new research program at the Innovative Genomics Institute led by bioengineering graduate faculty Jill Banfield and Jennifer Doudna, supported by a $11 million commitment from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), seeks to use CRISPR genome editing to enhance the natural ability of plants and soil microbes to both capture and store carbon from the atmosphere.
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.
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.
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 […]
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.
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.
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.
How Cells Multitask: The Magic of Molecular Switches
Researchers led by Prof Tanja Koremme have glimpsed how protein molecular switches regulate a large number of different biological processes simultaneously, and the findings may shed light on how disease mutations operate.
The Kidney Project successfully tests a prototype bioartificial kidney
The Kidney Project, a nationwide collaboration led by Shuvo Roy, PhD of UC San Francisco and William Fissell, MD of Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), has been awarded KidneyX’s Phase 1 Artificial Kidney Prize for combining the two essential parts of its artificial kidney, the hemofilter and the bioreactor, and successfully implanting the smartphone-sized device for preclinical evaluation.
“Noisy” Gene Expression Plays Key Role in Development and May Help Improve Stem Cell Therapies
UCSF professor Leor Weinberger and his team discovered a fundamental mechanism that appears to speed the transformation of stem cells into other cell types.
From brain wave to words
Graduate program researchers at UC San Francisco have successfully developed a “speech neuroprosthesis” that has enabled a man with severe paralysis to communicate in sentences, translating signals from his brain to the vocal tract directly into words that appear as text on a screen. The work was conducted by Bioengineering group faculty Edward Chang and Karunesh Ganguly, PhD students Sean Metzger and Jessie Liu, alumni David Moses and Josh Chartier, and collaborators.
Behind the Scenes of a COVID-19 Lab
In this virtual lab tour, Gokul Ramadoss from the Conklin Lab, and Serah Kang, from the McDevitt Lab – two labs in the Bioengineering Graduate Program – talk about their recent study that highlights the effects of SARS-CoV-2 on the heart.
New Insights into How COVID-19 Causes Heart Damage
A new study led by graduate program faculty members Todd McDevitt and Bruce Conklin helps explain how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, inflicts damage on heart cells. The team’s findings, shared publicly on bioRxiv, show the virus’s unexpected effects on the structure of heart cells in the lab, as well as in heart tissue from COVID-19 patients.
Muller receives McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award
UC Berkeley EECS Professor Rikky Muller, member of the graduate program, is one of three scholars to win 2020 McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Awards, recognizing projects with the ability to fundamentally change the way neuroscience research is conducted. Muller is designing and building a high-speed holographic projector that can project 3D light into the brain at neural speeds, many times faster than current projectors, and so manipulate thousands of optogenetically-controlled neurons with high precision.
Megaphages harbor mini-Cas proteins ideal for gene editing
Professor Jennifer Doudna and BioE PhD student Connor Tsuchida are among the team that discovered CasΦ (Cas-phi) proteins, which have advantages over current genome-editing tools when they must be delivered into cells to manipulate crop genes or cure human disease.
Protecting the Heart from COVID-19
Graduate program faculty member Todd McDevitt and collaborators at the Gladstone Institute are investigating how COVID-19 might damage the heart by asking two questions: How susceptible are the cells in the heart to infection by the virus, and what pharmaceuticals could be used to lessen damage to the heart or prevent the virus from infecting heart cells altogether?
New technique ‘prints’ cells to create diverse biological environments
With the help of photolithography and programmable DNA, researchers have created a new technique that can rapidly print two-dimensional arrays of cells and proteins that mimic a wide variety of cellular environments in the body. The work was led by recent BioE PhD Olivia Scheideler with graduate group faculty Lydia Sohn and David Schaffer, plus BioE PhD Andrew Bremer and current BioE student Roberto Falcón-Banchs, among others.
High-speed microscope captures fleeting brain signals
UC Berkeley professor and BioE Graduate Program member Na Ji and collaborators have built a microscope that can image the brain of an alert mouse 1,000 times a second, recording for the first time the passage of millisecond electrical pulses through neurons.