News Archive
December 8, 2014
A Sampler of Exciting Stories from 2014 from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering
From robots to rockets and crowdfunding to cybersecurity, 2014 has been a busy year here at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. Below is a sample of the highlights of the past 12 months. (Be sure to check the Jacobs School press release archive for 2014, Jacobs School blog, and archive of press clips highlighting Jacobs School projects for a more comprehensive list.) Full Story
November 25, 2014
Bioengineering Study Finds Two-Cell Mouse Embryos Already Talking about Their Future
Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have discovered that mouse embryos are contemplating their cellular fates in the earliest stages after fertilization when the embryo has only two to four cells, a discovery that could upend the scientific consensus about when embryonic cells begin differentiating into cell types. Full Story
November 24, 2014
Vegetable Oil Ingredient Key to Destroying Gastric Disease Bacteria
The bacterium Helicobacter pylori is strongly associated with gastric ulcers and cancer. To combat the infection, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Jacobs School of Engineering developed LipoLLA, a therapeutic nanoparticle that contains linolenic acid, a component in vegetable oils. In mice, LipoLLA was safe and more effective against H. pylori infection than standard antibiotic treatments.The results are published online Nov. 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Full Story
November 20, 2014
Shu Chien Receives U.C. San Diego Roger Revelle Medal
University of California, San Diego bioengineering professor Shu Chien has received the Roger Revelle Medal from UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla with the citation: “Shu Chien is widely known as an exceptional researcher, instructor, mentor and citizen of the university and his professional community.” Full Story
November 7, 2014
Engineering Graduate Students Named Siebel Scholars
Five engineering graduate students from the University of California, San Diego have been named 2015 Siebel Scholars. Full Story
November 5, 2014
Engineers and physicians propose new approach to single-ventricle heart surgery for infants
A schematic of an industrial ejector pump. This device transfers the energy of flow withhigher pressure to the flow with lower pressure, hence elevating the pressure at the outlet. Based onthe same concept, flow through the SVC can be assisted by flow through the shunt to obtain a higherpressure at the PA without increasing SVC Full Story
October 16, 2014
Nineteen new faculty join the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego
Nineteen new faculty members will join the Jacobs School of Engineering this year, which is growing to meet the intense demand for its engineering education programs. Full Story
October 3, 2014
Biomedical Engineers Win 'People's Choice' Award for Inspiring Video
The National Academy of Engineering named a group of University of California, San Diego bioengineering students as the “People’s Choice” award winner in a video contest celebrating the 50th anniversary of the NAE. The Biomedical Engineering Society at UC San Diego received $5,000 in prize money for their award-winning video titled “The Future is Boundless.” Full Story
October 2, 2014
Diabetes in a Dish
Although type 1 diabetes can be controlled with insulin injections and lifestyle modifications, major advances in treating the disease have not been made in more than two decades and there remain fundamental gaps in what is understood about its causes and how to halt its progression.With a 5-year, $4-million grant from the National Institutes of Health, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and bioengineers at UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, with colleagues at UC Irvine and Washington University in St. Louis hope to change this. Full Story
October 1, 2014
Jacobs School Recruiting for 16 Positions in 2014-15
The Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego is recruiting for 16 open faculty positions in the 2014-15 academic year. Currently, four recruitments have been posted—each of which can lead to more than one hire. The positions are focused through cluster hires in robotics, materials and energy, advanced manufacturing, information sciences, engineering and clinical medicine, and more. Full Story
August 29, 2014
Scientists sequence complete genome of E. coli Strain responsible for food poisoning
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have produced the first complete genome sequencing of a strain of E. coli that is a common cause of outbreaks of food poisoning in the United States. Although the E. coli strain EDL933 was first isolated in the 1980s, it gained national attention in 1993 when it was linked to an outbreak of food poisoning from Jack-in-the-Box restaurants in the western United States. Their paper published online Aug. 14 in the journal Genome Announcements reports the full, complete sequence with no gaps. Their analysis includes so-called jumping genes that can move around the same genome, sometimes causing damage to individual genes or enabling antibiotic resistance. Full Story
August 11, 2014
Matrix Stiffness is an Essential Tool in Stem Cell Differentiation
Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have proven that when it comes to guiding stem cells into a specific cell type, the stiffness of the extracellular matrix used to culture them really does matter. The research team, led by bioengineering professor Adam Engler, also found that a protein binding the stem cell to the hydrogel is not a factor in the differentiation of the stem cell as previously suggested. The protein layer is merely an adhesive, the team reported Aug. 10 in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Materials. Full Story
August 1, 2014
Tumor Suppressor Mutations Alone Don't Explain Deadly Cancer
Although mutations in a gene dubbed “the guardian of the genome” are widely recognized as being associated with more aggressive forms of cancer, physicians and bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have found evidence suggesting that the deleterious health effects of the mutated gene may in large part be due to other genetic abnormalities, at least in squamous cell head and neck cancers. The study, published online Aug. 3 in the journal Nature Genetics, shows that high mortality rates among head and neck cancer patients tend to occur only when mutations in the tumor suppressor gene coincide with missing segments of genetic material on the cancer genome’s third chromosome. Full Story
July 29, 2014
UC San Diego Engineering Graduates Aim For Game-Changing Green Chemistry
San Diego-based company Genomatica, co-founded by UC San Diego bioengineering alumnus Christophe Schilling, sustainably produces chemicals essential in the manufacture of thousands of products from fabrics to plastics. Full Story
July 28, 2014
Jacobs School Faculty Among the World's Most Influential Scientists
Several Jacobs School professors have been named among the most influential scientists in the world by Thomson Reuters. Congratulations to Bernhard Palsson in bioengineering, Yuri Bazilevs in structural engineering and Joseph Wang in nanoengineering. The list compiles the most highly cited researchers in the sciences and social sciences from 2002-2013. Full Story
July 17, 2014
A GEM of a Prize
Two physician-engineer teams from UC San Diego have been selected as the 2014 recipients of the Galvanizing Engineering in Medicine (GEM) awards from the Clinical and Translational Research Institute (CTRI) and the Institute of Engineering in Medicine (IEM). GEM, an initiative of UC San Diego's CTRI and IEM, supports projects that identify clinical challenges for which engineering solutions can be developed and implemented to improve health care. Full Story
June 27, 2014
Anouchka Mihaylova Bioengineering Award
An award for bioengineering students at UC San Diego has been created to honor Anouchka Mihaylova. A project scientist in the bioengineering department, Mihaylova died on May 17 after being struck by a hit-and-run driver while walking with her husband in Rancho Bernardo. Full Story
June 18, 2014
Outstanding Graduates from Class of 2014 Share Their Stories
Engineering swept the outstanding student awards at this year's All Campus Graduation Celebration. Damini Tandon, a bioengineering major, was recognized as outstanding undergraduate student for her efforts to make health education and medical treatment accessible. Michael Porter, a Ph.D. student in the research group of materials science professor Joanna McKittrick, received the outstanding graduate student award for his academic achievements and his mentoring. Full Story
June 4, 2014
Get Involved: Q&A with JUMP Mentoring Program Co-founder
Margie Mathewson, a Ph.D. student in bioengineering, is the co-founder of the Jacobs Undergraduate Mentoring Program, better known as JUMP. Within the past three years, the program went from serving 70 students to more than 300. Mathewson is getting ready to graduate and go out into industry. She will be starting work as a consultant for global management consulting firm McKinsey and Co. in Los Angeles in the fall. In this Q&A, she talks about her experiences here at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego and what decided her to get involved. Full Story
May 21, 2014
Remembering Anouchka Mihaylova
Anouchka Mihaylova, a project scientist in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego died on May 17 after being struck by a hit-and-run driver while walking with her husband in Rancho Bernardo. Mihaylova joined the department in 2000, where she was a researcher in the Cardiac Mechanics Laboratory led by bioengineering professor Andrew McCulloch in the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. Mihaylova was a key investigator of the National Biomedical Computation Resource. Full Story