News
July 30, 2026
Colleagues, Family and Friends Celebrate 95th Birthdays of Professor Shu Chien and Dr. K.C. Chien
Approximately 130 guests gathered in San Diego to honor the pioneering bioengineer Shu Chien and pediatrician Dr. K.C. Chien, who have been married for nearly seven decades. Full Story
July 30, 2026
Flipping the Switch: Triton Racing Goes Electric
After nearly 30 years of designing and building a formula race car powered by an internal combustion engine for the annual Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) collegiate competition, the Triton Racing student team at UC San Diego flipped a switch in 2023 and went electric. For the first time, the team was able to bring a functioning formula race car running on its own battery power that they designed and built, to the Formula SAE Electric competition this June, representing three years of intense learning and work. Full Story
July 27, 2026
Insect-inspired electronic nose: turning semiconductor chips into olfactory sensors
Bioengineers at UC San Diego integrated the olfactory receptor of an insect called a jumping bristletail into semiconductor chips made of graphene, creating an electronic nose capable of sniffing out a wide variety of small organic compounds. Full Story
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July 16, 2026
Bioengineering Alumnus Launches Venture Capital Fund Focused on San Diego MedTech Startups
Alumnus Garrett Smith is bringing his decades of experience across the innovation ecosystem back to San Diego, as founding managing partner of recently launched ReefHaven Ventures. The San Diego-focused venture capital fund is dedicated to early-stage medical technology startups, and, crucially, reinvesting back into the local innovation ecosystem. Full Story
July 15, 2026
Drug Candidate Could Help L-Dopa Work Better for Patients with Parkinson’s
For Parkinson's patients, the drug that restores movement can stop working reliably and cause involuntary movements of its own. A new candidate from UC San Diego-born biotech Sinopia Biosciences may fix both — boosting L-dopa's benefits while easing dyskinesia. Full Story
July 13, 2026
Open-Access Genetic Map Provides Reference for What Almost Every Stem Cell Gene Does
Bioengineers have developed a genome-scale reference map that details how individual genes control the functions and identities of human stem cells. This open-access resource could help researchers build virtual cell models for complex diseases, as well as design patient-specific treatments for these diseases. Full Story
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June 9, 2026
Outstanding engineering, computer science undergraduates honored with Awards of Excellence
These six students were selected from the more than 1,300 graduating undergraduates in the Jacobs School of Engineering class of 2026 to receive Awards of Excellence from their academic department. Full Story
April 23, 2026
Six New Projects Are Empowering Early-Career Engineering and Computer Science Faculty
Six teams from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering have been awarded funding to accelerate interdisciplinary research collaborations that include an early-career faculty member. The big idea is to empower early-career faculty to build interdisciplinary research collaborations to the point that they are competitive for multi-year external funding. The effort is funded by Irwin Jacobs and his late wife, Joan. Full Story
April 21, 2026
MRI and Augmented Reality for Better Back Pain Surgery Wins at Research Expo 2026
Mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Songyuan Lu won the grand prize at this year’s Research Expo, where more than 150 students presented their research posters across the six departments at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. Lu’s work focuses on computer-assisted surgery using MRI and augmented reality. Full Story
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April 16, 2026
Bioengineering Alumni are Running for ALS
From bioengineering graduate students at UC San Diego, to the streets of Washington D.C. for the Marine Corps Marathon, UC San Diego bioengineering alumni Scott Dorfman and Tatsuya (Tats) Arai have forged a life-long friendship. And now, they’re running together again, this time in the Boston Marathon on April 20, to support a cause that hits close to home: ALS organizations. Full Story