LIU HONORED WITH YOUNG INNOVATOR AWARD Chang Liu has received the 2019 Young Innovator Award from the American Chemistry Society’s Synthetic Biology journal. The recognition honors the contributions of a young scientist who has made a major impact on synthetic biology and/or related fields. Liu, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, conducts research in the fields of synthetic biology, chemical biology and directed evolution. He is particularly interested in engineering specialized genetic systems for rapid mutation and evolution to address problems ranging from protein engineering to developmental biology. Liu has been recognized with a number of awards, including the Sloan Research Fellowship, the NIH New Innovator Award, the Beckman Young Investigator Award and the Dupont Young Professor Award. “The synthetic biology community is an extraordinary one, full of amazing scientists and engineers who have an ambitious vision for the future of bioengineering,” said Liu. “I am lucky to be a part of that group and honored to be recognized by them. I am also deeply thankful for the wonderful scientists in my lab, whose creativity, dedication and kindness make our research possible and make me love what we do.”
COLLABORATION LEADS TO SPECIAL INVITATION Samueli School professor Tibor Juhasz (left) attended the 2018 Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, where he watched his longtime collaborator Gerard Mourou win one of the Nobel Prizes in physics. Because his own research is so closely intertwined with that of Mourou, Juhasz received an invitation to both the Nobel ceremony and the four days of events surrounding it, including lectures, discussions, receptions, parties and a banquet with the Swedish king and royal family. Juhasz began working with Mourou in January 1987, when Juhasz joined Mourou’s lab at University of Rochester as a postdoctoral researcher. The two collaborated for years on chirped pulse amplification (CPA) lasers and the development of an ophthalmic femtosecond laser; Mourou is on the board of Juhasz’s startup company, ViaLase, a UCI spinoff that is developing new applications to treat anterior chamber disorders of the eye with the femtosecond laser. “Gerard truly deserved this award, not only for his groundbreaking invention of CPA ... but also for his magnificent contribution to the optics community − from educating many excellent scientists to his visionary role in the establishment of numerous high-power laser research centers all around the word,” said Juhasz. BME Discovery
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BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING TEAM PLACES IN BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION A biomedical engineering team led by graduate student Ning Ma won second place in its semifinal round at the 2019 Rice University Business Plan Competition. The proposed company, called Embryologic, has developed a noninvasive imaging device that can assess the quality of an embryo for in vitro fertilization. The UCI team was one of 42 competitors and one of 15 semifinalists. The Rice Business Plan Competition is a graduate-level student startup competition designed to give collegiate entrepreneurs a real-world experience to fine-tune their business plans and elevator pitches and to generate funding and successfully commercialize their product. Embryologic’s device uses fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy to measure intrinsic fluorescent signals from pre-implantation embryos. The team discovered that embryos have unique fluorescence lifetime signatures that change as they develop in each stage of division. The embryos also have unique signatures when they become unhealthy. Embryologic can assesses the developmental potential of pre-implantation embryos to increase the success rate of IVF and decrease the financial and emotional costs for couples. Ma is a graduate student in the lab of Michelle Digman, biomedical engineering associate professor. “We have developed a machine learning algorithm called the embryo viability index to select the best embryo with the highest developmental potential,” said Ma. “We hope to bring safety and confidence to future parents going through in vitro fertilization.”
