Amanda Steele, a graduating senior in biomedical engineering who has done research in the Yamada Lab, is the 2013 recipient of the Ronald and Lydia Baskin Research Award. This award is given annually by UC Davis College of Biological Sciences to a graduating senior in recognition of outstanding original research in the biological sciences.

Graduate students Siyuan Xing and Jia Jiang, along with Prof. Tingrui Pan, developed a new textile microfluidic platform using hydrophilic (water-attracting) threads stitched into a highly water-repellent fabric. They were able to create patterns of threads that suck droplets of water from one side of the fabric, propel them along the threads and expel them from the other side.

“Recent and Future Directions in CT Imaging”

Vivita Technologies, a startup founded by Veterinary Medicine Professor and Athanasiou Lab collaborator Leigh Griffiths and BME Ph.D. students Regina MacBarb, Jeni Lee, and Maelene Wong, won the Big Bang! Business Plan Competition.

ViVita Technologies, Inc. (including Dr. Leigh Griffiths and BME graduate students Maelene Wong, Jeni Lee, and Gina MacBarb) AmberCycle Industries (including BME Assistant Professor Marc Facciotti and UC Davis undergraduate students) are finalists in the annual Big Bang! Business Plan Competition and will find out if they won at tonight’s awards ceremony. Good luck!

College of Engineering Design Showcase is 2:00-4:30PM on June 6, 2013. For a little preview of what you’ll be seeing, here’s a video of a biomedical engineering team talking about the biomimetic prosthetic eye they designed: http://youtu.be/IeLcKwHYkcM

“Advances in Quantitative Analysis of Medical Images: Functional Imaging and Modeling of the Heart, Brain and Vasculature”

Anatomical complexity in breast parenchyma and its implications for optimal breast imaging strategies, by Lin Chen, Craig K. Abbey, Anita Nosratieh, Karen K. Lindfors, and John M. Boone , has received the 2012 Sylvia Sorkin Greenfield Award. The award honors the best paper published that year in the journal, Medical Physics.

This past weekend the 2nd Annual BME Graduate Group Research Conference was held in the Buehler Alumni Center. Nicole De Jesus (Ripplinger lab) had the Outstanding Oral Presentation. Three students were recognized for the outstanding poster presentation: Josh Roth (Hull lab), Hussain Fatakdawala (Marcu lab), and Jennifer Lee (Athanasiou lab).

Gina MacBarb is one of 66 doctoral students nationwide selected to receive a $15,000 2013-2014 Scholar Award from P.E.O. International. Gina has optimized a bioactive treatment regimen that increases the functional properties of engineered cartilage closer to those of native tissue.

Dr. Hamel received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Materials Science, as well as his M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from UC Davis. He then completed his Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering at Penn State University in 2000. Dr. Hamel currently works in the Endoscopy Division of Stryker, which focuses on development, manufacturing and distribution of endoscopic medical devices used in minimally invasive surgery.

Nominations are open to STUDENTS, STAFF and FACULTY. To nominate, submit a formal letter outlining how the candidate’s leadership has contributed to BME by May 8th to Rosalind Christian.

“Optically probing the nanoarchitecture of cells and tissues.”

“Biomimetic Strategies for Bone Regeneration”

“Unraveling the Impact of Extracellular Matrix in Tissue Regeneration and Disease”

“Novel biomimetic ‘spiny’ surfaces in medical applications”

Molly Townsend, a biomedical engineering graduate student working with Prof. Nesrin Sarigul-Klijn, has received a 3-year NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to support her Ph.D. research. Her project, “Long Duration Spaceflight Spine Fracture Location,” will investigate the effects of prolonged microgravity on the spine biomechanics and injury.

“The (Radically) Changing Landscape in Biomedical Technology Innovation.”

Christal Wintersmith, Biomedical Engineering’s Graduate Student Affairs Officer, is the recipient of this year’s Graduate Student Association Award for Excellence in Service to Graduate Students. The award will be presented at the Interdisciplinary Graduate and Professional Symposium award ceremony and dinner on Friday, April 5th.

The TEAM Design, Prototyping, and Fabrication Laboratory has been making 3D printed replicas of dogs’ skulls to help veterinarians at the Dentistry and Oral Surgery Service at the VMTH plan surgeries. Based on CT scans, the models help surgeons to better assess the patient’s damage, and plan the best surgical routes for avoiding the brain and other critical areas.

A study published this week in PNAS reveals a key mechanism by which dietary omega-3 fatty acids could reduce tumor growth and spread of cancer. The research was a collaboration between the Ferrara Lab, lead author Guodong Zhang (UC Davis Entomology and Comprehensive Cancer Center), and researchers at Harvard University. Full story available here and here.

“Interstitial Flow in the Tumor Microenvironment: Contributions to Cancer Invasion and Progression”
Faculty Candidate

“The Role of NMDA Receptor Mechanosensitivity in Regulating the Repair of Neural Circuitry after Traumatic Injury”

“Synthetic Signaling Systems for Biological Discovery and Design”

Collaboration between the Athanasiou Lab and the Dentistry & Oral Surgery Service in regrowing jawbone in dogs is the subject of a long story: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2013/03/17/dog-jawbone-repair/1588075/ .

Faculty Candidate Seminar: “Creating Synthetic Biological Systems with Coupled Genetic and Non-genetic Control Elements”

Undergraduate Christopher Sanchez has been accepted to the MGH Institute of Health Professions Doctor of Physical Therapy program. He also received a fellowship to support his study. The program is a three year program geared to educate students in helping patients restore function, improve mobility, relieve pain, and limit permanent physical disabilities resulting from injury or disease. This institution has clinical affiliations with world-class health care facilities – including Spaulding Rehabilitation, Massachusetts General and Brigham & Womens’ hospitals in Boston.

Laura Liptai, BME alumna and external advisory board member, testified at a USAF military trial in Germany. It turned out that the presiding judge, Judge Eflien, is also an alumna of UC Davis School of Law.

“The Dynamical Cytoskeleton Regulates Morphogenesis in Rod-­like Bacteria”

A new study published this month by the Athanasiou lab in the Biomedical Engineering Department at UC Davis has shown for the first time that depriving cartilage cells of oxygen at just the right time increases collagen crosslinks and doubles the tensile properties of engineered cartilage.

“Photoacoustic Tomography: Ultrasonically Breaking through the Optical Diffusion and Diffraction Limits” Watch livestream starting at 4 PM

“Applications of Computational Biology and Systems Biology to Tissue Engineering”

“Modeling and High-­‐throughput Analysis of RNA Structure Mapping Experiments”

“The Emergence of Regulatory Science, High-­‐Speed Computation and New User Interfaces in Development and Approval of Medical Devices”

Katherine Ferrara will be giving a talk on “Image-guided Delivery of Therapeutics: Engineering Design and Optimization” at the Frontiers in Bioengineering Workshop. More info here: http://ibb.gatech.edu/frontiers/program-2013

“U.S. Healthcare Financing -We Live In Exciting Times”

The Arthritis Foundation Flagship Initiative in Osteoarthritis is soliciting applications for a Proof of Feasibility Study. Proposals must be submitted on or before April 15, 2013. For full information click here: http://www.arthritis.org/research/for-researchers/funding-opportunities/

“Molecular imaging with time domain fluorescence”

“Integrating Single-Cell Experiments and Stochastic Analyses to Predict Gene Expression Dynamics”

“Principles of Neural Ensemble Physiology and Brain-Machine Interfaces.”

“Dynamic Biomaterials for Controlling the Cell Microenvironment”

Doug Rowland at CMGI used the Xradia MicroXCT-200 to perform high-resolution X-ray CT scans of some of the fragments from the Sutter’s Mill meteorite. The results of this work were published December 21 in Science.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its figures on occupations with the highest and lowest rates of unemployment in 2012. Biomedical engineers had one of the lowest rates of unemployment– 0.4%. Read the whole story here: http://cnnmon.ie/RGBIZQ

We have an immediate opening for a postdoctoral fellow to work on advanced imaging approaches to evaluate medical countermeasures for neurotoxic chemicals that can cause seizures in humans. This project is part of a new $17M Center of Excellence at UC Davis funded by the NIH CounterACT program (http://www.ninds.nih.gov/research/ counterterrorism/counterACT_home.htm). It is anticipated that findings from this Center also could lead to improved medical treatment for patients with seizure disorders.

“Why the best bed for cells is bumpy and soft.”

Kyriacos Athanasiou has been named to the University of Thessaly, Greece, Board of Trustees. Founded in 1984, The University of Thessaly is known for its excellent research performance and outstanding scientific achievements. This is the first board of trustees at any Greek university. “The educational system in Greece is currently under attack, owing to the [...]

Ph.D. student Jeni Lee was on Good Day Sacramento this morning to help promote the Discovery Museum’s “Meet a Scientist” event for kids this weekend. She, along with other BME and UC Davis grad students, will be at the museum with activities and interactive models to help kids learn about science.

“Career Path to Academia and Bone Research”

Wendy Brown is part of a team from UC Davis that has been chosen to send an experiment onto the International Space Station. The project’s title is: “Comparison of the Growth Rate & DNA/RNA Quantitation of Microgravity Exposed Microbial Community Samples Collected by the Astronauts Onboard the International Space Station And by Citizen Scientists & Student Scientists at Public Venues”.

Along with Katherine Ferrara and Michael Savageau, Athanasiou and Fyhrie will double to four the number of Biomedical Engineering professors who are AAAS Fellows.

Michael Savageau, Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis, has been made an IEEE Fellow, for application of systems engineering concepts to molecular biology. IEEE Fellow is the highest grade of membership and is recognized by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement.

A figure from Atul Parikh’s article, “Long-range interlayer alignment of intralayer domains in stacked lipid bilayers,” was chosen as the cover image for the December, 2012 issue of “Nature Materials”. A summary of the article is in the “News and Views” section, here:http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v11/n12/full/nmat3507.html

The Nemitsas Prize is the highest honor a Cypriot scientist can receive, and one of the most prestigious awards in the European Union. He received the award to honor his numerous achievements in the field of biomedical engineering and tissue engineering.

​”Stem Cell Therapy for Soft Tissue Orthopedic Injuries in Horses”

Kyriacos Athanasiou was interviewed about his group’s new review article in the latest issue of “Science”. The article is called, “Unlike Bone, Cartilage Regeneration Remains Elusive,” and the co-authors are Daniel Huey and Jerry Hu. Download or listen to the podcast here: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6109/917/suppl/DC2 .

The Neurophotonics Laboratory in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California Davis, is seeking an individual to fill a full-time animal surgeon/technician position.

What is Intellectual Property?

The Ferrara Lab has a postdoctoral fellow position available in the area of ultrasound imaging and therapy at UC Davis, particularly focused on MR-guided focused ultrasound therapy.

Felipe won for, “pawPET: a High Sensitivity, High Resolution PET Scanner for Rodent Paws.” He is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Biomedical Engineering under the supervision of Dr. Ramsey Badawi.

Boaz Arzi, DVM, DAVDC, Staff Veterinarian in the Dentistry & Oral Surgery Service at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and a collaborator with the Athanasiou Lab, received the Robert Wiggs AVDC Outstanding Candidate Award at the 26th Annual Veterinary Dental Forum annual meeting in Seattle.

The Silva Lab is one of the first recipients of cord blood from the recently established Umbilical Cord Blood Collection Program. The Silva Lab’s current project will isolate vascular progenitor cells from the cord blood with the premise that he can investigate and develop new strategies to actively direct their homing in vivo.

“Hybrid Optical Tomography for Small Animal Imaging”

“Chemical tools for biomedical research”

Candidates at the Assistant Professor level are preferred, although outstanding candidates at the Associate Professor level will also be considered. Candidates with a background in biomedical frontiers like immune engineering, protein engineering, or experimental systems biology are especially encouraged to apply. The deadline for full consideration is November 30, 2012.

Candidates at the Assistant Professor level are preferred, although outstanding candidates at the Associate Professor level will also be considered. While all areas of expertise will be considered, candidates with a background in biomedical frontiers like immune engineering, protein engineering, or experimental systems biology are especially encouraged to apply.

A NIH-funded postdoctoral position is available in the laboratory of Dr. Volkmar Heinrich.The successful applicant will play a lead role in experimental work that includes the preparation of functionalized carrier particles, the setup and use of custom-built forceprobe instruments, and the analysis and interpretation of single-molecule and single-cell measurements.

The UC Davis iGEM team has again garnered a gold level medal at last weekend’s America’s West Regional Competition that was held Oct 12-14 at Stanford. The team is working on new solutions to bio-based plastic degradation and recycling. Only the top 1/3 of teams advance to the World Championship in two weeks at MIT [...]

Simon Cherry has been selected as the winner of the IEEE Edward J Hoffman Medical Imaging Scientist Award, “For pioneering contributions to preclinical PET and molecular imaging”. This award is given by the Nuclear and Plasma Science Society of IEEE to an individual in recognition of the impact and novelty of his research in the field of medical imaging science.

Marc Facciotti is one of the 2012-13 Hellman Fellows. His project is: “Development of a low-cost microfluidic device for chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by next generation DNA sequencing.” The UC Davis Hellman Fellowship Program, now in its fifth year, has given grants totaling almost $250,000 to 12 assistant professors. Funding comes from the San Francisco-based Hellman Family Foundation.

“Protein Osmotic Pressure for Diagnostics and Therapy”

Professor Marc Facciotti was invited to present a poster at the 2012 National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Education Symposium October 14-17, 2012, at the Academies’ Beckman Center in Irvine, CA. He will present some of the things he has been doing in BIM140 titled: “Crowd-sourced in silica design of protein-based biosensors”.

Ye Chen-Izu has won a Research Contract from pharmaceutical company, Gilead Science., Inc. to use her newly developed cellular electrophysiology technique to study new anti-arrhythmia drugs in development.

The Department of Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis invites applications for an Assistant Professor level position with emphasis on mechanistic modeling of biological systems. A research emphasis on mechanistic modeling of biological systems at scales from the nano to the cellular is preferred along with the ability to contribute to and benefit from existing research strengths within BME (e.g., in quantitative biology tools, tissue engineering, stem cell biology, nanotechnology/ nanotherapeutic drug delivery, degenerative diseases, and imaging/optics) and within the larger quantitative biology community at UC Davis.

Katherine Ferrara received the award on October 8 at the IEEE-UFFCS (Ultrasonic Ferroelectric and Frequency Control Society) annual meeting in Dresden, Germany. The Achievement Award is the highest Society-wide award presented to a member in special recognition of outstanding contributions.

“Valvular Heart Disease: Bioengineering from Bench to Bedside”

Assistant Professor: Mechanistic Modeling of Biological Systems. The deadline for full consideration is November 15, 2012 although applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Click for more information.

“The sympathetic nervous system and cardiac arrhythmias”

“Engineering solutions to tackle heart disease mechanisms”

We have an immediate opening for a postdoctoral fellow or research staff member to work on an exciting project to develop next-generation electronics for positron emission tomography (PET) scanners, with application to small-animal, breast and whole-body human imaging. The successful candidate will work primarily on the design of PET electronics and its integration with the data acquisition system and control software.

Volkmar Heinrich, professor of Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis, has been awarded a four-year NIH R01 to investigate the role that cytoskeletal membrane anchors play as “switchboards” in communication between cells. Professors Soichiro Yamada and Scott Simon are co-investigators on the project.

Eight dogs have had this treatment now, with a 100% success rate. It was the biomedical engineering expertise in determining and applying the correct dosage and devising the protocol for handling the bone morphogenetic protein that make the surgeries so successful.

The award is given each year to a student chapter that submitted a Chapter Development Report which demonstrates evidence of outstanding performance in enhancing the professional awareness and education of their members in the previous year. The chapter’s ability to spark collaboration between engineering students from many different disciplines and backgrounds helped win the award.

This UC Davis team is tackling the problem of plastic pollution and is working to create a bacteria that can biodegrade polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, a commonly used plastic that’s in such items as soda bottles and food trays.

Yohei Yokobayashi has received a NIH R01 for a five-year project to develop artificial, genetically encoded nanomachines that self-assemble in living cells. The goal is to produce nanomachines comprised of RNA molecules that are transcribed in the cell from DNA templates. The nanomachines are intended to be produced within and remain stable as they operate in a living cell, and to sense and integrate variety of intra- or extracellular signals.

Ramsey Badawi has won a groundbreaking grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to address whether tumors can be detected when they are two to three times smaller than those detectable using current imaging methods. Badawi’s project, “Enabling Technologies for Ultra-High Sensitivity PET Scanners” was chosen from among more than 700 grant applications submitted to the NCI.

Yuzhe Ding and Eric Huang, from Tingrui Pan’s lab, won third prize for their project, “Non-contact Multiplexed Microfluidic Dot-Matrix Printing.”

The Srinivasan Lab has a postdoctoral research position for applicants with a background, expertise, and interests in one or more of the following areas: biomedical optics and light-tissue interaction, medical signal and image processing, fiber optics / photonics technologies, and microscopy. The candidate must have a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, biomedical engineering, physics, applied physics, or other relevant discipline.

Dr. Ferrara received funding to develop the “Center for Content Rich Evaluation of Therapeutic Efficacy (cCRETE)”. Dr. Cherry received funding to develop the “Center for Translational Molecular Imaging”. Six of the twelve funded projects have involvement of Biomedical Engineering Faculty.

A postdoctoral research position is open for applicants with a strong background and research experience in biomedical signals and image analysis. The successful candidates will work on NIH-funded multidisciplinary research projects focused on research and development of advanced optical techniques and ultrasonically-assisted optical methods for in-vivo diagnosis and therapy of human diseases including vulnerable atherosclerotic plaque. The projects involve the development of novel optical signal processing, image analysis, reconstruction and classification methods with application to fluorescence lifetime spectroscopy/imaging microscopy as well as to ultrasound backscatter microscopy. Theoretical and computational studies will be combined with experimental research in our laboratory.

Dr. Ye Chen-Izu, in collaboration with Dr. James Chan at the Center for Biophotonics, were awarded an Interdisciplinary Academic Senate Faculty Research Grant. This grant is to utilize advanced photonics technology to study cardiac arrhythmias. The title of project is “Multimodal Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) and Fluorescence Microscopy for Studying the Link Between Cardiac Muscle Mechanical Stress and Arrhythmogenic Ca2+ activity”.

Dr. Vivek Srinivasan will join the Biomedical Engineering Department faculty as an Assistant Professor, effective July 1, 2012. He has a B.S. from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from MIT. Dr. Srinivasan has a particular focus on neural engineering and also works in biophotonics and imaging.

Professor John Boone co-authored the third edition of “The Essential Physics of Medical Imaging” with UC Davis colleagues Jerry Bushberg and Tony Seibert, and VA scientist Ed Leidholdt. This text is widely used for radiology resident education and in BME graduate courses in the English speaking world, and is one of the top five best-selling books in the Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins Medical Books Division. The 3^rd Edition became available in January 2012.

Senior Keegan Owsley has won the 2012 Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research. He will receive a special plaque at a ceremony June 1. Keegan has done the majority of his research under Professor Marc Facciotti. He joined the iGEM team the summer after his sophomore year, and has participated on the team for the past two years.

The Athanasiou Lab has received a grant from CIRM to conduct extensive toxicology and durability tests to determine long-term safety and efficacy of his lab’s tissue engineered cartilage.

Graduate Student Jennifer Lee has been selected for fellowship support in the NIH Training Program in Biomolecular Technology for 2012-13.The Biotechnology Fellowship Review Committee had an outstanding pool of 27 nominees, so this fellowship is highly valued. The award is for 12 months and will begin October 1, 2012.

“Functional Neuroimaging Using MR: Moving From Basic Research to Clinical Application”

The 4th edition of Simon Cherry’s textbook, Physics in Nuclear Medicine, has just been published. He also received two NIH Shared Instrumentation Grants to purchase an XRadia microCT biospecimen scanner that can acquire tomographic x-ray imaging of tissue samples down to 1 micron resolution, and a Perkin Elmer IVIS Spectrum system for in vivo fluorescence and bioluminescence imaging for CMGI.

Matt Halverson has been named the UC Davis College of Engineering’s 2012 Ghausi Medal Recipient. The Ghausi Medal is the highest honor the College bestows upon a graduating senior. The Medal recognizes Matt’s grades and overall academic excellence. Matt is the fourth biomedical engineering student since 2006 to win the Ghausi Medal.

Gina MacBarb, a graduate student in the Athanasiou Lab, mentored a Davis Senior High School student who has now won a $1,000 Monsanto/Calgene Biotechnology Scholarship. Gina has mentored DHS junior Ines Guinard in the Athanasiou Lab since January of this year as part of Ines’ biotechnology class.