News
September 21, 2012
With $6M Grant, UC San Diego Bioengineers Take On Key Role in New NIH Common Funds Metabolomics Program
With a $6 million grant over five years, bioengineers from the University of California, San Diego will play a central role in a new program from theNational Institutes of Health (NIH) to accelerate “metabolomics”, an emerging field of biomedical research that offers a path to a wealth of information about a person’s nutrition, infection, health, disease status and more. Full Story
September 18, 2012
Five UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Graduate Students Named 2013 Siebel Scholars
Five University of California, San Diego graduate students pursuing research at the intersection of bioengineering, medicine and biology are among the 85 recipients of 2013 Siebel Scholars awards, announced by the Siebel Scholars Foundation on September 10, 2012. Full Story
August 30, 2012
Science study: 'Promiscuous' enzymes still prevalent in metabolism
Open an undergraduate biochemistry textbook and you will learn that enzymes are highly efficient and specific in catalyzing chemical reactions in living organisms, and that they evolved to this state from their “sloppy” and “promiscuous” ancestors to allow cells to grow more efficiently. This fundamental paradigm is being challenged in a new study by bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego, who reported in the journal Science what a few enzymologists have suspected for years: many enzymes are still pretty sloppy and promiscuous, catalyzing multiple chemical reactions in living cells, for reasons that were previously not well understood. Full Story
August 20, 2012
Program trains professionals in medical device engineering
Dan Braun earned a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering at the University of California, San Diego in 2006. Five years later he came back to enroll in the inaugural class of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering’s Master of Advanced Study Program in Medical Device Engineering. The cross-disciplinary program is designed to train working professionals to apply their engineering know-how and workforce experience to a new career in one of the region’s fastest growing technology sectors. Full Story
August 7, 2012
Computer models calculate systems-wide costs of gene expression
Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a method of modeling, simultaneously, an organism’s metabolism and its underlying gene expression. In the emerging field of systems biology, scientists model cellular behavior in order to understand how processes such as metabolism and gene expression relate to one another and bring about certain characteristics in the larger organism. Full Story
June 29, 2012
Gene Mutations Cause Massive Brain Asymmetry
Hemimegalencephaly is a rare but dramatic condition in which the brain grows asymmetrically, with one hemisphere becoming massively enlarged. Though frequently diagnosed in children with severe epilepsy, the cause of hemimegalencephaly is unknown and current treatment is radical: surgical removal of some or all of the diseased half of the brain. In a paper published in the June 24, 2012 online issue of Nature Genetics, a team of doctors and scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, say de novo somatic mutations in a trio of genes that help regulate cell size and proliferation are likely culprits for causing hemimegalencephaly, though perhaps not the only ones. Full Story
June 28, 2012
Flexible Electronics Push Frontier in Neonatal Neuroscience
Anyone who has seen a newborn in a hospital neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) knows the image is shocking. Wires and electrodes designed to monitor vital signals such as heart rate, brain signals and blood oxygen levels are taped over the frail newborn’s head, face and body. Skin-to-skin contact between mom and baby that doctors say all newborns need to develop a sense of security and bonding becomes challenging, if not impossible. Parents seeing their precious baby this way may also feel terrified and helpless. A new study at the University of California, San Diego will test whether all of those bulky electronics could be replaced with a stamp-sized wearable patch of tiny circuits, sensors, and wireless transmitters that sticks to the skin like a temporary tattoo, stretching and flexing with the skin while maintaining high performance. Full Story
June 18, 2012
Medical Technologies Dominate UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge
The pitches at the UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge included technologies to cure cancer, brain-computer interfaces for patients without speech, an automated portfolio management system, sensor assisted orthopedic surgery, garbage compactors, and an enhanced dental implant. Full Story
June 7, 2012
Students Showcase Eureka Moments at Undergraduate Research Expo
A new acne medicine; a better way to simulate the collapse of supernovae; and a better way to visualize chromosomes: these were just some of the research posters on display at EUReKA, an undergraduate research expo that took place Friday at the Jacobs School of Engineering. Full Story
May 8, 2012
Grand Challenges Explorations Grant Funds Groundbreaking Health Research
The University of California, San Diego Jacobs School of Engineeringannounced today that it is a Grand Challenges Explorationswinner, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Bioengineering Professor Todd Coleman, in collaboration with Materials Science and Engineering Professor John A. Rogers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,will pursue an innovative global health and development research project, titled “Epidermal Electronics for Continuous Pregnancy Monitoring.” Full Story