August 2009 -

The Department of Bioengineering would like to welcome our newest faculty member, Dr. John Dueber.

July 9, 2009 -

Sanjay Kumar, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at UC Berkeley, has been awarded a 2009 Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers by President Obama.

April 20, 2009 - Matthew Tirrell, incoming Chair of the Department of Bioengineering and current Dean of the College of Engineering at UC Santa Barbara, has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Tirrell is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a fellow of the American Physical Society.

March 18, 2009 -

Jay Keasling, Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering, was named one of Rolling Stone Magazine's 100 Agents of Change.

Jay made the list of 40 "people reinventing America" for his advances in synthetic biology, engineering microbes to produce cheap malaria drugs and working to synthesize biofuels. Also on the list were other visionaries like Al Gore, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Bill Gates, and President Barack Obama.

Read the full list at Rolling Stone.

Way to go Jay!

March 16, 2009 -

Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering Professor Jay Keasling is becoming a fixture on YouTube! In addition to his appearance last week on The Colbert Report, he can also be found on YouTube discussing antimalarial drug research in a video produced by California Connected, an award-winning PBS news magazine.

March 11, 2009

Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering Professor Jay Keasling made a guest appearance on the Colbert Report, a popular Comedy Central news magazine television show last night.

Keasling, CEO of the Joint BioEnergy Insitute and Director of the Physical Biosciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, was invited to the show to discuss his research efforts to engineer microbes that can produce biofuels. Jay has become a famous proponent of synthetic biology, the technique of designing and building biological systems to accomplish new tasks, especially new and cheaper manufacturing methods for useful chemicals. Colbert and Keasling joked about producing gasoline from "microbe poo", and also discussed Jay's efforts to cheaply produce the malarial drug Artemisinin for the developing world.

Watch the full episode at The Colbert Report.

February 17, 2009 -

Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering David Schaffer, along with researchers from UC Berkeley and the University of Iowa, have turned a relatively benign virus into a highly infectious form that is ideal as a carrier for gene therapy.

December 15, 2008 -
Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering Professor David Schaffer has been elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

November 5, 2008 -

BioE and Chemical Engineering Professor Jay Keasling’s joint proteomics study has uncovered a protein link that may help fight tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.

October 10, 2008 -

Bioengineering Professor Adam Arkin was involved in the genome sequencing analysis of the first ecosystem ever found having only a single biological species, discovered 2.8 kilometers (1.74 miles) beneath the surface of the earth in the Mponeng gold mine near Johannesburg, South Africa.

September 22, 2008 -

Assistant Professor of Bioengineering Sanjay Kumar has been awarded a 2008 NIH Director's New Innovator Award!