Biomolecular Engineering
- November 15, 2024
How optogenetics can put the brakes on epilepsy seizures
In what could one day become a new treatment for epilepsy, researchers at UC San Francisco, UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley have used pulses of light to prevent seizure-like activity in neurons.
- November 12, 2024
Bioluminescent proteins made from scratch enable non-invasive, multi-functional biological imaging
Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Andy Yeh is designing completely artificial proteins that produce bioluminescence to serve as a non-invasive method for bioimaging, diagnostics, drug discovery, and more.
- October 28, 2024
Engineers awarded CDC contract to build pathogen-tracing public health tools
The CDC has awarded Corbett-Detig and his team at the UCSC Genomics Institute a two-year, $2.52 million contract to continue their work tracking the COVID-19 virus’s evolution and expand their software tools to track other pathogens.
- October 15, 2024
Genomics Institute provides seed funds for six multidisciplinary projects
The Genomics Institute has awarded grants of up to $50,000 to six multidisciplinary research projects in the inaugural year of its seed funding program
- September 16, 2024
ARCS Foundation 2024 scholarships support outstanding graduate students in science and engineering
Sixteen outstanding UC Santa Cruz graduate students in science and engineering fields earned scholarships worth a total of $180,000 from the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Foundation for the 2024-25 academic year.
- August 30, 2024
Researchers to investigate genetic roots of autism, look for new treatments
A new award from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine will support a team of UC Santa Cruz researchers in exploring the genetic underpinnings of autism spectrum disorder.
- August 23, 2024
Mapping the mind
Ph.D student Asia Anderson focuses on the development of brain machine interfaces to model and study the development of the human brain, specifically those with neurodegenerative disorders.
- August 21, 2024
Genomics at heart
Sarah Xia (College Nine ’23, biomolecular engineering and bioinformatics) found her passion for genomics at UC Santa Cruz. Now, a year after earning her B.S. in biomolecular engineering and bioinformatics, Xia is a research associate at Stanford.
- July 16, 2024
Scientists find that small regions of the brain can take micro-naps while the rest of the brain is awake and vice versa
For the first time, scientists have found that sleep can be detected by patterns of neuronal activity just milliseconds long
- June 07, 2024
Study offers guidance on state-of-the-art long-read RNA sequencing techniques
A new study evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the two leading long-read RNA sequencing platforms and offers guidance for the field.
- May 14, 2024
Stem cell study reveals distinct population of ‘troublemaker’ platelet cells that appear with aging and lead to blood clotting, disease
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Camilla Forsberg and her research group have discovered a distinct, secondary population of platelets that appears with aging and have hyperreactive behavior and unique molecular properties, which could make them easier to target with medication.
- April 22, 2024
UC Santa Cruz researchers’ tool creates ‘synthetic’ images of cells for enhanced microscopy analysis
UC Santa Cruz researchers have developed a method to use an image generation AI model to create realistic images of single cells, which are then used as “synthetic data” to train an AI model to better carry out single cell-segmentation.
- April 18, 2024
UC Santa Cruz researchers receive grants for early-stage technology innovations and climate action solutions
Eight UC Santa Cruz research teams focusing on some of the most pressing issues of our time, such as cancer detection, data encryption, and climate change, received more than $350,000 in awards as part of this year’s Innovation Catalyst Grant program, administered by the university’s Innovation & Business Engagement Hub.
- March 21, 2024
Research on understudied lung cancer drivers may improve treatments
Angela Brooks has been awarded a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s prestigious R01 program to study how gene isoforms impact cancer progression and what treatments might be most effective or lead to drug resistance.
- February 13, 2024
Protein designer awarded $2.5M to develop bioluminescent protein for deep tissue imaging
Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Andy Yeh was awarded a nearly $2.5 million grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to develop completely artificial enzymes that can produce bioluminescence in the body for deep tissue imaging.
- February 07, 2024
Bioelectronics enable precise control of organoids for better understanding of neuro diseases, neuron circuits
UC Santa Cruz researchers have developed a new plug-and-play bioelectronics system that enables researchers to precisely control neuronal activity in cortical organoids, which will help unlock new discoveries on how brains form neural circuits and the underpinnings of neurodevelopmental and degenerative diseases.
- January 17, 2024
Insights from UCSC-made COVID-19 tracking tool will guide the future of studying pathogens in real time
A new paper by a team of UCSC pathogen genomicists offers guidance for the future of web tools for tracking pathogen evolution.
