News
March 16, 2020
Undergraduate students bring Intranet to rural Ghanaian school
A team of undergraduates, who are part of the Global Ties program at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, developed a self-sustaining and scalable computer server and intranet system. The system will allow teachers at the Semanhyiya American School (SAS) in the rural village of Senase, Ghana, to download Internet pages and educational materials that students can access anytime at school—even when there is no Internet. Full Story
March 4, 2020
UC San Diego synthetic biologists redesign the way bacteria 'talk' to each other
Bioengineers at the University of California San Diego have redesigned how harmless E. coli bacteria “talk” to each other. The new genetic circuit could become a useful new tool for synthetic biologists who, as a field, are looking for ways to better control the bacteria they engineer to perform all sorts of tasks, including drug delivery, bioproduction of valuable compounds, and environmental sensing. Full Story
February 27, 2020
Scientists Design Way to Use Harmless Bacteria to Detect Heavy Metals in Drinking Water
A team from UC San Diego and the San Diego startup Quantitative BioSciences has a new approach to continuous monitoring of heavy metal contamination in drinking water using bacteria as sensors of contamination. The team recently published their advances in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). Full Story
February 19, 2020
Controlling CAR T cells with light selectively destroys skin tumors in mice
UC San Diego bioengineers have developed a control system that could make CAR T-cell therapy safer and more powerful when treating cancer. By programming CAR T cells to switch on when exposed to blue light, the researchers controlled the cells to destroy skin tumors in mice without harming healthy tissue. Full Story
February 4, 2020
Jacobs School faculty, student, staff honored with Inclusive Excellence Awards
Three members of the Jacobs School of Engineering community were awarded 2020 Inclusive Excellence Awards for their outstanding contributions toward increasing diversity at all levels at UC San Diego. Full Story
February 3, 2020
Algae Shown to Improve Gastrointestinal Health
A widespread, fast-growing plant called Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is famous in scientific laboratories due to its position as the world’s most exhaustively studied algae. Researchers at the University of California San Diego recently completed the first study examining the effects of consuming C. reinhardtii and demonstrated that the algae improves human gastrointestinal issues associated with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) such as diarrhea, gas and bloating. Results of the project are published in the Journal of Functional Foods. Full Story
February 3, 2020
Assessing 'stickiness' of tumor cells could improve cancer prognosis
Researchers led by UC San Diego built a device that sorts and separates cancer cells from the same tumor based on how “sticky” they are. They found that less sticky cells migrate and invade other tissues more than their stickier counterparts, and have genes that make tumor recurrence more likely. Full Story
December 20, 2019
News Obituary: Y.C. Bert Fung
Yuan-Cheng “Bert” Fung, known as “the father of biomechanics” and one of the founders of the discipline of bioengineering at the University of California San Diego, passed away Dec. 15, 2019 of natural causes. He was 100. Full Story
December 5, 2019
UC San Diego Engineering Dean Albert P. Pisano inducted into National Academy of Inventors
Albert P. Pisano, professor and dean of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, has been named a 2019 fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). UC San Diego bioengineering faculty affiliate Paul Citron and electrical engineering alumna Mihri Ozkan (Ph.D. ECE ‘01) are also among the 168 new fellows inducted into National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellows in 2019. Full Story
December 4, 2019
Machine learning provides new paradigm in understanding microbial gene regulation
UC San Diego bioengineers developed a method that would enable them to understand how E. coli coordinate their expression of thousands of genes. The method uses a machine learning algorithm to automatically interpret gene expression datasets. Full Story