Researchers from the University of California, San Diego recently offered the sharpest-yet picture of how core biochemical pathways in skeletal muscle cells and fat cells are altered in people who suffer from insulin resistance—a primary defect in type 2 diabetes and obesity. Taking a systems biology approach, the bioengineers and medical researchers also determined how a common class of drugs for treating insulin resistance—TZDs—alter these same core pathways. This led the team to uncover previously unknown effects of TZDs and insights that could lead to improved drug therapies for insulin resistance.
The team—led by investigators from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and School of Medicine—recently published their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Over the last 20 years, the sequencing of the human genome, along with related organisms, has represented one of the largest scientific endeavors in the history of mankind. The information collected from genome sequencing will provide the raw data for the field of bioinformatics, where computer science and biology meet. Since the publication of the first full genome sequence in the mid-1990s, scientists have been working to identify the genomic location of all the gene products involved in the complex biological processes in a single organism. However, they have only been able to identify a fraction of those locations. Until now. Bioengineers at UC San Diego have made a breakthrough development that will now allow scientists to perform full delineation of the location and use of genomic elements. The researchers have discovered that multiple simultaneous genome-scale measurements are needed to identify all gene products, and to determine their cellular locations and interactions with the genome.
The University of California, San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering is the 9th best in the world for engineering/technology and 15th in the world for computer sciences, according to an academic ranking of the top 100 world universities published by the Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
The Academic Rankings of World Universities (ARWU) in engineering are based on academic and research performance. Indicators considered include: number of researchers highly cited for their work in engineering, computer science and materials science; articles indexed in Science Citation Index-Expanded; percentage of articles by faculty published in top-tier journals; and total engineering-related research expenditures.
Dr. Cauwenberghs received his Engineer’s Degree in Applied Physics from the University of Brussels in 1988. He obtained his Masters of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in 1989 and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 1994 from the California Institute of Technology.
Dr. Cauwenberghs has held professorial appointments at Johns Hopkins University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined the UC San Diego Division of Biological Sciences, Neurobiology Section, in 2005. In July of 2009, Dr. Cauwenberghs was appointed Professor in the UC San Diego Department of Bioengineering.
Bioengineering Ph.D. student and cancer diagnostics pioneer Raj Krishnan won the “Best Pitch” award at the 3rd Annual Tech Coast Angel (TCA) Quick Pitch Competition.
Competition participants had a maximum of 2 minutes and 5 slides to sell their company story to the approximately 300 attendees, including potential investors.
“There were 3 prizes, Best Pitch, Best Content and Best Overall. We won the Best Pitch prize for the best presentation they had seen at the competition,” wrote Krishnan in an email. Krishnan is the founder of Biological Dynamics, an early stage startup with its sights set on the early cancer diagnosis market.