News Archive
September 1, 2011
Glowing, Blinking Bacteria Reveal How Cells Synchronize Biological Clocks
Biologists and bioengineers at UC San Diego created a model biological system consisting of glowing, blinking E. coli bacteria. This simple circadian system, the researchers report in the September 2 issue of Science,allowed them to study in detail how a population of cells synchronizes their biological clocks and enabled the researchers for the first time to describe this process mathematically. Full Story
August 25, 2011
Genomatica Files Registration Statement for Proposed IPO
Renewable chemicals developer Genomatica announced that it has filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to a proposed initial public offering (IPO) of shares of its common stock. Full Story
August 10, 2011
Wearable Electronics Demonstrate Promise of Brain-Machine Interfaces
Research conducted by a new member of the bioengineering faculty at the University of California, San Diego has demonstrated that a thin flexible, skin-like device, mounted with tiny electronic components, is capable of acquiring electrical signals from the brain and skeletal muscles and potentially transmitting the information wirelessly to an external computer. The development, published Aug. 12 in the journal Science, means that in the future, patients struggling with reduced motor or brain function, or research subjects, could be monitored in their natural environment outside the lab. It also opens up a slew of previously unimaginable possibilities in the field of brain-machine interfaces well beyond biomedical applications, said Professor Todd Coleman, who joined the Department of Bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering this summer. Full Story
July 29, 2011
UC San Diego Bioengineering Startup Genomatica Tops New Biofuels Ranking
Renewable chemicals developer Genomatica recently took the #1 spot in the 2011-12 30 Hottest Companies in Renewable Chemicals and Materials rankings by BiofuelsDigest. Full Story
July 26, 2011
New UC San Diego Master Degree Program Aims to Keep the Medical Device and Medical Diagnosis Workforce Competitive
Engineers at the University of California, San Diego are launching a new graduate degree program this fall that will help medical device and medical diagnosis engineers in Southern California, and their employers, innovate and remain competitive. Full Story
June 20, 2011
Nanoparticles Disguised as Red Blood Cells Will Deliver Cancer-Fighting Drugs
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a novel method of disguising nanoparticles as red blood cells, which will enable them to evade the body’s immune system and deliver cancer-fighting drugs straight to a tumor. Their research was published this week in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Full Story
May 31, 2011
Bioengineered Medical Devices in Finals for $100K UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge
From hospital-borne infections that cause nearly 20,000 deaths each year to a debilitating dry eye disease that can lead to blindness, engineering students at the University of California, San Diego are developing medical devices that promise to lower costs, improve patient care and save lives. So it’s not surprising that two student teams from the UC San Diego, Jacobs School of Engineering are in the running for $100K prize as finalists in the 5th Annual UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge on June 1. Full Story
May 25, 2011
Nanoengineers Invent New Biomaterial That More Closely Mimics Human Tissue
A new biomaterial designed for repairing damaged human tissue doesn’t wrinkle up when it is stretched. The invention from nanoengineers at the University of California, San Diego marks a significant breakthrough in tissue engineering because it more closely mimics the properties of native human tissue. Full Story
May 24, 2011
As Gravity Wanes and Pressures Gain, It's Pain and Bane for the Brain
A group of students from the University of California, San Diego and Grossmont Community College have designed a set of experiments to precisely measure intracranial pressures in microgravity using a contraption that mimics the circulatory system of the human brain. Full Story
May 12, 2011
Southern California Wireless Health Innovators Win Funding for Inventions
Southern California researchers working on wireless health technologies recently won commercialization support and research funding through the TATRC/Qualcomm Wireless Health Innovation Challenge. The awards will support UC San Diego work on artificial retinas made from nanowires, a UCLA system that helps people re-learn to walk after a traumatic injury, and USC tools that enable doctors to monitor and modify – from afar – drugs administered by infusion pumps. Full Story
May 4, 2011
Nearly 30 Percent of New CIRM Awards go to UC San Diego Stem Cell Researchers
UC San Diego scientist garnered 8 of the total 27 of Basic Biology III awards announced today by the Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee (ICOC) of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Bioengineering professor Kun Zhang from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering is among the 8 campus awardees. Full Story
April 19, 2011
Research Expo 2011: a Snapshot of the Jacobs School of Engineering
From robots to UAVs, railway safety, social networks and grocery shopping technology for the blind, engineering graduate students at the University of California, San Diego presented their latest research to industry, potential investors and to fellow students and faculty at Research Expo on April 14, 2011. Full Story
April 11, 2011
Improving Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer Through Advanced Optical Imaging
UC San Diego bioengineering grad student Carolyn Schutt may be on to something big, something that will help revolutionize the way physicians diagnose and treat cancer. Full Story
April 6, 2011
Future Computer Vision Tools to Aid Medical Research and Healthcare
Boris Babenko believes there are huge opportunities for integrating computer science, and in particular computer vision, into health care and medical research, making life easier for researchers, physicians and ultimately patients. Full Story
March 1, 2011
Mutations Found In Human-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
Ordinary human cells reprogrammed as induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) may ultimately revolutionize personalized medicine by creating new and diverse therapies unique to individual patients, but important and unanswered questions have persisted about the safety of these cells, in particular whether their genetic material is altered during the reprogramming process. Full Story
February 23, 2011
Nanoparticles Increase Survival after Blood Loss
In anadvance that could improve battlefield and trauma care, scientists at University of California San Diego and Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have used tiny particles called nanoparticles to improve survival after life-threatening blood loss. Nanoparticles containing nitric oxide (NO) were infused into the bloodstream of hamsters, where they helped maintain blood circulation and protect vital organs. The research was reported in the February 21 online edition of the journal Resuscitation. Full Story
January 28, 2011
Bioengineers among UC San Diego Researchers Awarded CIRM Grants in Support of Innovative Technologies
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has awarded three grants totaling nearly $5.8 million to researchers at the University of California, San Diego – including bioengineering professors Shu Chien and Shyni Varghese -- for development of innovative technologies designed to advance translational stem cell research. Full Story
January 18, 2011
Bioengineers 'Pump' Life Into Post-Heart Attack Therapies
Bioengineers at UC San Diego are one step closer to improving therapies for heart attack victims.A paper recently published in Biomaterials called “Hydrogels with time-dependent material properties enhance cardiomyocyte differentiation in vitro,” describes how the researchers measured the increase in stiffness that occurs in heart muscle as it develops and then mimicked that change in a modified version of a biological material called hyaluronic acid. Full Story
January 13, 2011
Eight UC San Diego Professors Named New AAAS Fellows
Bioengineering professor Bernhard Palsson and NanoEngineering professor Shaochen Chen are the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering professors named AAAS Fellows in 2011. Full Story
December 6, 2010
Metabolism Models may Explain Why Alzheimer's Disease Kills Some Neuron Types First
Bioengineers from the University of California, San Diego developed an explanation for why some types of neurons die sooner than others in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. These insights, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology on November 21, come from detailed models of brain energy metabolism developed in the Department of Bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. Full Story