UCI Biomedical Engineering Discovery Magazine Fall 2022

FROM THE CHAIR

As our department celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, it is a perfect moment to pause and reflect on where we are and how we got here. What started as a small group of enthusiasts guided by common interests in biomedicine has flourished into a vibrant ecosystem with 33 faculty members, dozens of professional researchers, and hundreds of graduate and undergraduate students. While I’ve been with the department for 17 years and witnessed most of this journey, the events leading up to the department’s inception existed in my memory only as a collection of anecdotes. We would be remiss not to recollect those early days, and our main feature article recounts these thorny yet glorious beginnings. Spoiler alert: the idea behind our department was born on a basketball court.

As we adjust to the post-pandemic world, our department has had another year for the record books. Four of our colleagues were named AIMBE fellows. Christine King received a teaching award from ASEE for her pioneering work in BME education. Abe Lee and Chang Liu were honored with Chancellor’s Professorship and Chancellor’s Fellowship, respectively—the highest UCI distinctions in their career ranks. Our students continue to shine by winning highly competitive awards.

Our researchers are continuously pushing the boundaries of biomedical discoveries. In this magazine, you will find remarkable stories, such as how a new cell type defies our understanding of tissue biomechanics. You will also learn about a new biopsy technology that can simultaneously profile multiple tumor biomarkers. You can also read about non-viral intracellular delivery or how continuously evolved proteins may help deepen our understanding of cell signaling. These are just a snapshot of many exciting developments supporting our research, teaching and mentoring missions, and I encourage you to read on.

On a more somber note, we lost Michael Berns, our Distinguished Professor emeritus and one of our department’s founders, this year. Michael was a visionary who was decades ahead of his time. He left a remarkable legacy that we are honored to carry on.

This magazine is about the people I am proud to call colleagues. I invite you to get to know us better. I also invite you to visit us on the beautiful UCI campus as we kick off our 20th-anniversary celebration.

Sincerely,

Zoran Nenadic, D.Sc.

William J. Link Chair and Professor Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Irvine

IRVINE

OF

BORN ON A BASKETBALL COURT

The origin story of biomedical engineering at UCI

TONYA BECERRA

UCI’S DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING WAS BORN ON THE BASKETBALL COURT.

Between dribbles and dunks, the vision of creating a new department, where engineering would merge with medicine and biological sciences for the betterment of human health, began to take shape.

In 1995, avid basketball fans Steven George, then chemical and biochemical engineering and materials science assistant professor, and Bruce Tromberg, then electrical and computer engineering associate professor, met on Sundays at the newly constructed University Hills basketball court for a regular pickup game with other faculty, postdocs, graduate students and occasionally the men’s head basketball coach.

“We chatted in between games about our families, Irvine and also our research programs,” says George. “It quickly became clear that the Beckman Laser Institute (and Medical Clinic), where Bruce’s lab was located, was the focal point for biomedical research on campus. Bruce mentioned there were several medical and doctoral students pursuing their thesis work at the

BLI, but there was not an adequate home for the engineering-oriented students. Most of these students chose biophysics/ physics or electrical engineering. He thought there might be an opportunity to develop a biomedical engineering program on campus.”

George told Tromberg about the Whitaker Foundation. “This foundation was investing heavily to establish biomedical engineering as a rigorous academic discipline in the form of grants to develop formal academic programs and departments, as well as ‘new/young’ investigator grants,” explains George, whose first extramural grant was from the Whitaker Foundation.

These early conversations at the basketball court occurred around 1995-96.

“Without this beautiful new court, we may not have been able to retain Steve George, probably one of UCI’s most impactful ‘basketball plus leadership’ recruits of all time,” says Tromberg, who had come to the BLI as a postdoc in 1988. “BLI urgently needed a main campus partner to expand biophotonics as an academic discipline.

Biophotonics and biomedical optics were growing exponentially around the world, driven by remarkable technologic advances

“We chatted in between games about our families, Irvine and our research programs,” says Steven George (pictured) about his colleague Bruce Tromberg. “Bruce thought there might be an opportunity to develop a biomedical engineering program on campus.”

and robust commercialization of medical lasers, phototherapies, optical coherence tomography (OCT), laser microscopies/ microbeams and endoscopies/minimally invasive surgeries; all core areas pioneered by the BLI. This was vital for attracting and retaining students and faculty. Establishing a BME department was a perfect opportunity, but creating it from scratch required substantial investment.”

Enter Nicolaos “Nick” Alexopoulos, who arrived in summer 1997. He had left UCLA to join UCI as engineering dean and professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and he was integral in launching the BME department.

For Alexopoulos, the motivation was deeply personal. “I had an older and brilliant brother who was an engineer,” he says. “I became an engineer because of him. Unfortunately, he got eye melanoma and lost his eye. Within a year, there was a metastasis in his liver. I recall a visit to a doctor where my brother was told that he just worried too much. Yet the cancer was growing fast. When the doctor finally accepted the fact the tumor was inoperable, it had to be reduced in size. The only way to do it back then was with high levels of heat. So, my brother participated in an experiment, but the technology was too primitive and painful at the time. He did not survive it. This experience reinforced my goal to help educate doctor/engineers and doctor/scientists.”

Driven by the loss of his brother, Alexopoulos envisioned forming a BME

BME TIMELINE

FALL 1995

Steven George and Bruce Tromberg meet at a pickup basketball game in University Hills. They bond over a desire to create a biomedical engineering program on campus.

department, “I immediately started the process, but the school was small and some faculty opposed it because they needed resources to grow their own departments. Nevertheless, I proceeded slowly and got the agreement and help from the dean of the medical school at that time, Dr. Tom Cesario, and colleagues at the Beckman Laser Institute.”

George says, “In 1997, there were only four departments and approximately 60 faculty, but the economy was starting to pick up and there were significant growth opportunities on the entire campus, including the school of engineering.

During the 1997-98 academic year, I approached Nick about the Whitaker Foundation, and the opportunities they presented for establishing biomedical engineering programs/departments.

“I distinctly remember telling him, ‘I think we can be competitive for their smaller award – the Special Opportunity Award’ (approximately $1 million over three years). Nick did not hesitate: ‘Steve, what is their biggest award, and what would it take to get it?’ That changed my entire thinking about what might be possible. I said, ‘Well, there is the Development Award, but that award has only been given to a small number of campuses willing to invest like six to 10 new faculty lines and commit to forming a department.’ He said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

George and Alexopoulos were concerned about a junior faculty member leading the project and decided the BLI would

FALL 1998

Biomedical Engineering Corporate Advisory Board created to involve local industry with the engineering school. William J. Link, managing partner of Versant Ventures, named board chair.

Center for Biomedical Engineering established.

DEC 1998

1999

Center for Biomedical Engineering receives prestigious Development Award from the Whitaker Foundation - a $3 million grant over four years to spur the development of biomedical engineering at UCI.

Department

JUL 1997

Nicolaos G. Alexopoulos named engineering dean, bringing a new focus on biomedical engineering.

“With its bench-to-bedside technology and medical device development, the Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic was the very definition of biomedical engineering at the time,” says Bruce Tromberg.

need to play a guiding role. Tromberg introduced George to BLI Director Michael Berns. “Michael was keen on the idea and had the leadership skills to be the principal investigator on the application,” recalls George. “The problem was that he was not an engineer by training and really knew nothing about planning an undergraduate program in BME – a requirement of the Development Award. Michael and Bruce developed the research focus areas (photonics, computation and microfabrication/MEMS), and I developed the undergraduate and graduate programs. Nick committed something like six to eight new faculty lines and space in the school of engineering. We also cobbled together an early External Advisory Board that included William J. Link.”

In 1998, the Whitaker Foundation granted a $3-million Development Award to form the Center for Biomedical Engineering. “I am pretty sure we shocked the BME world at the time,” says George. “We were clearly the least ‘developed’ program that had ever received the Development Award, and our success was due to a combination of many features. But I think future potential, including the local biomedical device sector in Orange County, played a major role.”

Alexopoulos was also drawn to the immense potential of Orange County’s biomedical field. “Orange County was like a Silicon Valley but for biomedical technology companies,” he says. “I visited just about all of them (big and

small) and asked them for their help and participation. They helped create the department by talking to the chancellor and administration, and by giving money to UCI and the school of engineering. Their support was also critical.”

One of the early industry supporters was Link and his wife, Marsha, who later donated $1.5 million to establish the William J. Link Endowed Chair in Biomedical Engineering in 2001. Link is a successful medical device entrepreneur and venture capitalist, whose companies have included Chiron Vision, American Medical Optics and Versant Ventures. “When I look through my engineering rose-colored glasses at recent medical advances, I see talented engineers who have discovered unique solutions for health problems,” said Link in 2002. “Marsha and I thought, ‘What better way to help than to contribute to a university we’re fond of and a field that we’ve benefited from immensely?’ It’s helped us do well and do good.”

“In the first year (1999), we recruited several new faculty and began the long process of establishing a new department and new undergraduate program,” recalls George. “Progress was good, but about halfway through the first year, Michael Berns had a recurrence of an illness that would not allow him to continue to lead the program.” With the support of Alexopoulos and Tromberg, George became the new principal investigator and eventually the founding chair, serving from 2002 to 2009.

JUN

FALL

William J. Link gives the school $1.5 million to establish an endowed chair in biomedical engineering.

JUL

AUG

undergraduates

for Biomedical

“Orange County was like a Silicon Valley but for biomedical technology companies,” says Nick Alexopoulos, UCI engineering dean from 1997 -2008. “I visited just about all of them (big and small) and asked for help and participation. Their support was critical.”

In 2000, the BME graduate program launched. In 2002, the Center for Biomedical Engineering officially transformed into the Department of Biomedical Engineering, including two undergraduate degree programs and an expanded graduate program offering master’s degrees and doctorates.

“By the end of the Development Award in 2004, we had a critical mass of new faculty (six to eight), and the only existing faculty who moved to the new department were myself (50%), Bruce (50%), and Michael (50%),” says George.

William “Bill” Tang joined the faculty in 2002 and served as acting department chair from 2005 to 2006 and again from 2009 to 2010. He was also the school’s first associate dean for research from 2008 to 2013. Tang recalls: “My fondest memories are always the precious moments in the annual department retreats. We not only talked about the reviews and future plans of the department, but also took some time to promote friendship among the faculty. There was one time when quite a few of us brought our musical talents to entertain everyone. One of us actually played regularly in a local establishment. That must be my fondest memory of the department.”

Looking forward, Tang says, “I hope the department continues to excel in all that we do – research, teaching and service. I also hope that at the same time, we continue to grow in our diversity and collegial relationships.”

Part of the growing diversity was the arrival of Michelle Khine, BME’s first

female faculty member in 2009. She was drawn to “the stellar microfabrication/ microfluidics folks here.” Khine says, “It was amazing how many leaders in the field were at UCI. Plus, the weather here sure beats the other places I was considering.”

Her experience turned into more than just fair-weather friends. “I was overwhelmed by how supportive and great this department is,” says Khine. “Enrico Gratton graciously opened his lab up to me and my students – so before my lab was even set up, we had published a paper together. Everyone was so great and collaborative that they quickly became a second family to me. In fact, the Elliots (Hui and Botvinick) are like brothers to me. Elliot Botvinick officiated both my wedding and my mom’s funeral. I’ve always felt appreciated, heard, supported and respected (which is not typical of my experience being a woman engineer!). This department is very special with amazing people. Now, I am so proud of the women we’ve recruited over the years.”

In 2002, Abraham “Abe” Lee was recruited for the newly established California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (CALIT2). When he arrived, he was offered the choice of which engineering department to join. “At the time, there was a Center for Biomedical Engineering but no department,” he recalls. “I jumped at the opportunity, knowing that a department would be started soon.”

MAR 2002

Department of Biomedical Engineering is officially formed. Steven George named founding chair.

Graduate and undergraduate degree programs approved. APR 2002

FALL 2002

First undergraduate class begins.

First BME Ph.D. student graduates: Aikaterini Zoumi, who transferred from another UCI program.

JUN 2003

JUN 2005

First BME undergraduate class graduates: 12 students graduate in the BME program and nine in the BMEP program.

Lee served as department chair from 2010 to 2019. He notes, “The early days were precious in the sense of a having a mission to build something special. BME at UCI essentially started from scratch, and we were able to put our stamp on what type of department we were building and what type of impact we were envisioning. This sense of the collective sum being much greater than the individual parts was empowering and enthralling, motivating us to do what was best for developing the overall department and not just be concerned with one’s own career. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“We also sensed the community’s support, especially coming from the stakeholders in the BME industry who were cheering us on to succeed. The students were also proud to be the first graduates of this nascent department, and many are now leaders in different sectors of the BME ecosystem (research, corporate, healthcare). Over the years, we could start to see the fruits of our endeavors, as BME at UCI is not just a novelty and curiosity, but a recognized and established program that is among the best in the nation.”

Although the basketball court was the seeding ground, the Whitaker Development Award was the overwhelming force that drove department formation forward, according to Tromberg. “What Whitaker did uniquely was create a culture that inspired our senior campus leaders who embraced the BME

opportunity at a critical moment early in their UCI careers. They responded to the high level of expectations set by Whitaker leadership during multiple site visits. This had a huge and lasting impact that energized our faculty, students, administration and the Orange County region. Twenty years later, this legacy carries on with a remarkable return on investment for UCI and the national BME community.”

Today, the UCI BME department has evolved with 33 faculty, dozens of professional researchers, 136 graduate students and over 500 undergraduates. The focus areas for the master’s degree and doctoral programs include three technology areas of biomedical photonics/ optoelectronics, biomedical nano- and microscale systems/fabrication, and biomedical computation/modeling. BME faculty garner extramural grants with expenditures topping $30 million annually.

“The UCI BME’s mission statement is Inspiring Engineering Minds to Advance Human Health,” says Lee. “I hope UCI BME never loses sight of what it set out

to be, a department that focuses on the human aspect, to educate engineers who want to use their skills to better their fellow human beings. We built BME based on a community effort, and we should continue to serve the community that made it possible. The humble beginnings beg for a humble attitude toward the success and acclaim that we are garnering.”

Michael Berns, founding

of the Beckman Laser Institute

Medical Clinic, was a critical strategic partner in the early stages of the effort

form a biomedical engineering department at

RESEARCHERS DEVELOP NEW BIOPSY TECHNOLOGY FOR ANALYZING MULTIPLE TUMOR TISSUE BIOMARKERS

A team led by UCI biomedical researchers Weian Zhao and Enrico Gratton has developed a new biopsy technology that can profile multiple tumor microenvironment biomarkers simultaneously, revealing cellular spatial organization and interactions that will help advance personalized disease diagnosis and treatment. Current single-biomarker biopsies lack the ability to analyze many different markers and often fail to predict patient outcomes.

Called the Multi Omic Single-scan Assay with Integrated Combinatorial Analysis, the fluorescence imaging-based technology can spatially profile a large number of mRNA and protein markers in cells and tissues, including clinical tumor tissues. A study published in Nature Communications shows that MOSAICA enables direct, highly multiplexed biomarker profiling in a 3D spatial context using a single round of staining and imaging instead of the repeated processing steps typically needed in conventional methods.

Clinicians and scientists will now have a holistic view of the different immune and cancer cell types in tumor tissues, providing greater insight for determining patient prognosis and treatment.

“Spatial biology is a new science frontier and mapping out each cell and its function in the body at both the molecular and tissue level is fundamental to understanding disease and developing precision diagnostics and therapeutics,” said Zhao. “Many cancer immunotherapeutics, including immune checkpoint inhibitors, don’t work and scientists realized that was because of the spatial organization of all the tumor tissue cell types, which dictates drug efficacy. The MOSAICA can characterize the spatial cellular compositions and interactions in the tumor immune microenvironment in biopsies to inform personalized diagnosis and treatment.”

A startup company called Arvetas Biosciences, Inc. was cofounded by Zhao and Alan K. Hauser, Ph.D., to further develop and commercialize the technology for widespread use, ranging from oncology to neurological disorders.

NEW MICROFLUIDIC PLATFORM DEVELOPED FOR INTRACELLULAR DELIVERY

Cell therapy has become a powerful tool to treat patients suffering from cancer and other debilitating diseases stemming from gene mutations. One of the critical steps to manufacturing cell therapy products is the intracellular delivery of genetic coding molecules to make cells more powerful in fighting diseases.

To address the challenges of intracellular delivery, UCI researchers led by Abraham Lee have developed a microfluidic platform to safely and precisely deliver genetic coding molecules into cells. Called Acoustic-Electric Shear Orbiting Poration (AESOP), their highthroughput nonviral intracellular delivery platform optimizes transfer of cargo sizes with poration, or pore formation, of the cell membranes.

The standard approach for intracellular delivery is to use the molecular machinery of viruses to deliver genetic molecules into cells. However, viral delivery is limited by the size of the molecules it can carry. It also suffers from unwanted side effects from the virus that can be harmful to the patient.

“The ability to achieve intracellular delivery without the use of viruses is a holy grail for many applications, including but not limited to cell therapy – drug discovery processes, stem cell research, gene editing, etc.,” said Lee. “Although there are other nonviral methods, ours is unique in the sense that it can deliver molecules precisely and uniformly to a large population of cells, enabling safe and more effective cell engineering for therapeutic purposes.

“Our technology relies on a series of vortices, which are analogous to micro ‘washing machines,’ that stretch and twist the clothes (i.e., the cells) to make sure every part of it is uniformly absorbing the detergent (i.e., the genetic coding molecules).”

The vortices are formed based on tiny air bubbles trapped in lateral side cavities, something Lee’s lab has developed called lateral cavity acoustic transducers or LCATs. By applying an acoustic energy to the device, the microvortices are formed. Researchers also fabricate electrodes beneath the vortices to apply electrical fields. Lee’s group has demonstrated uniform and precise cell transfection – a procedure introducing foreign nucleic acids into cells to produce genetically modified cells, shown by the intracellular delivery of DNA plasmid, small double-stranded molecules, as well as the gene editing of cells with large genetic-coding plasmid complexes.

Lee and his team were recently awarded a $1.18 million dollar NIH grant to further their AESOP research.

GRADUATE STUDENT CREATES ALGORITHM TO UNLOCK MITOCHONDRIA’S INFLUENCE ON DISEASES

Mitochondria, the organelles inside cells responsible for making energy, hold keys to understanding diseases like cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s. Pursuing an interest in studying metastasis – the spread of cancer, Austin Lefebvre, Samueli School graduate student researcher in biomedical engineering, created an algorithm called Mitometer to track mitochondria in live-cell two-dimensional and threedimensional time-lapse images.

Research over the past decade has shown that mitochondria move to the edges of cancer cells to migrate to other parts of the body. Lefebvre began investigating mitochondrial motility in the biomedical department’s Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics. What he thought would be a simple task – create an algorithm to study the mitochondria’s movement to the edges of breast cancer cells during migration – ended up taking more than a year and a half of iterative work.

Mitochondria are very complex in shape and size, and they vary between cell types and cancers. So making an algorithm to analyze shape, track movement, and work in the general cell biology field proved challenging.

“A lot of people have made algorithms before that are very specific for their microscope or cell type, and mitochondria that are specific sizes, specific shapes,” explained Lefebvre. “But none of them are shape or size independent. That was messing up my progress, so I wanted to make it easier for myself and share it with everyone to let them use it too.”

What differentiates Mitometer from other programs is its speed, automation and lack of bias. Mitometer only requires the pixel size and time between frames in the time-lapse images to identify mitochondrial motility and morphology. The segmentation algorithm isolates individual mitochondria by removing the background but preserving the shape and size. The tracking algorithm links mitochondria via differences in morphological features and displacement.

“The algorithm and software will make studying these mitochondria a lot easier for researchers,” said Lefebvre.

“By using the software, it can help identify the mitochondrial differences, so that down the line, we can have better ideas about how to target the more aggressive types of cancer and other diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s.”

FUNDING ENABLES TEAM TO STUDY CELL SIGNALING

The W.M. Keck Foundation has awarded $1 million to biomedical engineering researchers at UCI and Boston University to study cell signaling, which could unlock significant discoveries in human physiology and lead to therapeutic innovations.

Co-principal investigators Chang Liu, professor of biomedical engineering at UCI, and Ahmad (Mo) Khalil, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, will develop a platform to create biomolecules that enable the systematic study of biased signaling by G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs). GPCRs are a large class of membrane proteins used by cells to convert extracellular signals into intracellular responses regulating many physiological functions in the human body, including neurotransmission, vision, smell, the endocrine system, and the immune system.

“This award will give us the freedom to pursue new ideas in molecular and cell biology by evolving proteins that precisely modulate GPCRs,” said Liu.

In the classical model, GPCRs act as on/ off switches where a ligand acts to turn on or off all signaling from a GPCR. In recent years, however, this classical model has been expanded through the discovery of biased GPCR ligands, biomolecules that do not simply activate or inhibit all signaling but selectively modulate downstream pathways. In effect, this turns a black-and-white signaling paradigm into “color” by adding another dimension to its possibilities, explained the researchers.

“GPCRs control almost every aspect of human physiology and the ability to selectively activate certain GPCR signaling pathways over others is hypothesized to have major therapeutic advantages, like treating pain or heart conditions with fewer side effects,” said Liu. “Yet whether this selective activation is possible in a general manner, that is still an open question in the field. We are excited to answer that question by leveraging our continuous protein evolution approaches.”

CROSS-DISCIPLINARY RESEARCHERS WILL EXPLORE APPLICATIONS IN REGENERATIVE MEDICINE

The W.M. Keck Foundation has awarded $1 million to an interdisciplinary team of UCI researchers to study the formation and health of cartilages, tissues that are vital to skeletal structures.

A particular focus for the UCI team, which includes scientists from the School of Biological Sciences and Samueli School of Engineering, will be an examination of “peculiar cells” that are giant in size and packed with lipid molecules, according to co-principal investigator Maksim Plikus, professor of developmental & cell biology.

These cells come together to form and provide mechanical structure to cartilages in the nose, ears and other areas of the head, neck and chest. Having detected the presence of fat-rich cartilages in mice, the researchers now intend to conduct a thorough investigation of their developmental biology, biochemistry and biomechanics in hopes of better understanding birth defects of the face and learning how to harness the cells’ unique metabolism in new regenerative therapies for cartilage diseases.

“We have a pretty good basis of understanding about how [cells called] chondrocytes secrete an extracellular matrix to make up the voluminous packing foam-like tissue of ordinary cartilages,” Plikus said. “We are now keenly interested in studying newly found giant chondrocytes that secrete small amounts of extracellular matrix yet contain lipid-filled sacs that get packed together like Lego blocks.”

Fat-rich cartilages are, paradoxically, found to have exceptional mechanical properties, despite the fact that these tissues contain mostly cells and not much matrix, according to co-principal investigator Kyriacos Athanasiou, Distinguished Professor of biomedical engineering.

“A tissue that is so highly cellular should not be as strong and stiff because cells are orders of magnitude softer and weaker than the macroscopic tissue,” he said. “Thus, we believe this work will allow us to unveil new theories in tissue biomechanics.”

Athanasiou’s research group focuses on tissue regeneration therapies to help patients with a host of afflictions, so members are hoping that some of the fundamental knowledge gained in this new project will help in their efforts.

“The work supported by the Keck Foundation is truly exciting because the discovery of these fatty cartilage cells may allow us to understand how certain diseases of craniofacial cartilages may come about,” Athanasiou said. “Equally exciting, this may allow us to consider an entirely different way of making, or ‘tissue-engineering,’ these cartilages – for example, in the nose – by potentially considering fat-filled cells as the ‘engineers’ to fabricate cartilages similar to native tissues.”

INNOVATIVE DNA RECORDER STUDIES DRUG RESISTANCE IN BREAST CANCER CELLS

How do breast cancer cells develop resistance to chemotherapy? How does DNA damage change cell fate? These are key questions Theresa Loveless, UCI postdoctoral researcher in biomedical engineering, seeks to answer by creating innovative DNA recorders to study cells’ histories and behaviors.

The NIH has granted Loveless a Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers Postdoctoral Career Transition Award to Promote Diversity. The program supports early career, independent investigators from diverse backgrounds conducting research in NIH mission areas. The long-term goal of the program is to enhance diversity in the biomedical research workforce. The award includes $100,000 per year for the one or two years of the mentored phase and up to $249,000 per year for three years for the independent phase.

“I’m grateful that the study section and program official thought my proposal had promise,” said Loveless, who became disabled in graduate school. She developed persistent pain and weakness in her hands and wrists due to severe tendinitis. By strictly limiting movements that cause injury, she is now able to do experiments for about eight hours per week. She has learned to find resources that have let her stay in science, and she has been engaged in increasing representation for the disability community.

If Loveless secures an independent faculty position, she will take the funding with her to her own lab. She will continue developing her new DNA recorder, called Prime Editor CHYRON or peCHYRON, which will offer deeper insight into the lives of cells. peCHYRON is based upon the first DNA recorder Loveless created with adviser Chang Liu, called Cell History Recording by Ordered Insertion (CHYRON).

Unlike CHYRON, peCHRYON causes very little DNA damage. It can also record more information in parallel and at higher fidelity, providing deeper insight into the whole history of the cell. “It’s a better recorder,” Loveless explained. “I’m hopeful that, in the long term, we can start to really understand how something like endogenous DNA damage, which is damage that happens in the natural process of cell growth and division, affects the cells’ later development.”

RESEARCHERS DEVELOP NONINVASIVE OPTICAL BIOPSY TECHNOLOGY FOR WOMEN

Up to 50% of women going through menopause experience symptoms that negatively affect their general health and sexual function. Increasingly, energy-based devices, such as lasers including C02 micro-ablation, are emerging to treat symptoms that include vaginal atrophy and distressing urinary symptoms. To better understand the full effect of laser treatment on vaginal tissue, UCI biomedical engineering researchers are developing a new noninvasive intravaginal imaging system that could serve as an optical biopsy tool, ultimately enabling individually tailored screening, treatment and monitoring for patients.

“We are working on a point-of-care, multifunctional endoscope that can obtain real-time simultaneous information on structural, vascular and biomechanical changes before, during and after vaginal laser procedures,” said Zhongping Chen, professor of biomedical engineering.

A pioneer in biophotonics, Chen is working with an interdisciplinary team of scientists, engineers and physicians. The group recently received a $2 million R01 grant from the NIH.

The new imaging system combines optical coherence tomography and OCT angiogram into one technology and will function as an optical biopsy, providing objective, noninvasive scientific parameters to assist clinical practitioners as well as governing bodies (including the FDA) to determine best practices. Safe and effective therapies to relieve progressive menopausal symptoms over a long period are critical.

TUMOR TISSUE PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY EARNS FUNDING

UCI researchers have received a $1.1 million NIH award to further their work on an integrated microfluidic platform that could help dramatically change the way tumor tissue is clinically evaluated. With three years of funding support, the team led by Jered Haun, associate professor, will be able to test the technology on human tissue samples. The results could help scientists make progress in disease diagnosis and drug development.

Solid tumors are complex mixtures of different cell types, and these differences are key factors driving disease progression, metastasis and drug resistance. “Assessing cellular heterogeneity and identifying key driver cells are critical for understanding tumor biology, and for creating the most powerful clinical diagnostics,” said Haun. “Targeted therapies must be directed toward the most important cell types if effective cures are to be achieved. With this technology applied in clinical settings, we hope to help usher in an era of precision molecular medicine.”

Currently, single cell analysis studies are hindered, as tissues must first be dissociated into single cell suspensions using methods that are often inefficient, labor-intensive and highly variable. Importantly, certain cell types can be released more easily than others, which will bias the single-cell analysis assay and lead to incorrect conclusions.

The new platform will combine four separate microfluidic device technologies that Haun has pioneered. The devices were designed to work sequentially, starting from tissue specimen digestion, through dissociation and filtration to finally extracting single cells. Any remaining cell clusters would be recirculated back into the front end of the device to maximize cell recovery. Single cells will be continuously extracted from the system as soon as they are ready, within minutes after dissociation, to prevent overtreatment and maintain viability.

“This multifaceted approach will enable us to tailor flow properties and shear forces to the appropriate magnitude and size scale, resulting in gradual and ultimately complete breakdown of tissue in a fast, efficient and gentle manner,” said Haun.

The researchers will test the devices using human breast, pancreatic and prostate tumor tissue specimens.

NEW CARDIAC IMAGING TECHNOLOGY TO STUDY PULMONARY ARTERIAL HYPERTENSION

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare but serious condition in which high blood pressure occurs in the arteries that carry blood from the heart to the lungs. A progressive disease, it can lead to heart failure. To diagnose and monitor PAH, physicians conduct right heart catheterization, an invasive test to measure the pressure inside the heart and lungs. UCI’s Dr. Arash Kheradvar and his team have developed an alternative noninvasive imaging technology that could be used more widely to help physicians diagnose and follow up this condition in patients.

Kheradvar, professor of biomedical engineering, has been working over 10 years on the technology. Called echocardiographic particle image velocimetry (echo-PIV), it uses high frequency sound waves to scan the blood velocity and other characteristics of the heart. He has received a five-year $3.3 million award from the NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to study the energy state of the right ventricle of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension, using echo-PIV, and to test the feasibility of this approach for monitoring disease progression and regression. Noninvasive measurement of the right heart’s energy state could provide objective insights into the functional status of the heart, instead of the current use of right heart catheterization.

“We believe much more information regarding the hemodynamics of the right heart can be inferred from noninvasive echo-PIV, helping us understand the unidentified mechanisms of the disease,” said Kheradvar.

Kheradvar is working with an interdisciplinary team on the project and will test the technology at Cedars Sinai Medical Center.

FUNDING SUPPORTS CHRONIC STROKE RESEARCH

Over 8 million people in the U.S. are living with chronic stroke. The resulting disabilities lead to significant public health costs and decreased quality of life. With no means to satisfactorily restore functions after stroke, new effective regenerative approaches are much needed. Therefore, a new concept of “engineered neural networks” (ENN) is being developed by BME Professor Zoran Nenadic and Dr. An Do in UCI’s neurology department.

The ENN is envisioned to contain neurons derived from human adult stem cells and be structured to have precise inputs and feedback loops. These connections will enable the ENN’s integration with other brain and body areas and thereby learn behaviors. Ultimately, this integration process can lead to ENNs replacing stroke-damaged brain and any associated functions.

Before this goal can be achieved, the first step is to develop a benchtop testbed cultured neural network (CNN) and verify that it can be trained to perform an arbitrary sensory task and motor behavior. The researchers recently received funding from the National Science Foundation to conduct the study. Successful completion would demonstrate that CNNs can be trained to encode arbitrary behaviors and interact with other brain and body areas. This would justify further research to pursue the development of ENNs and methods to implant such systems into the stroke-damaged brain. Ultimately, this may restore brain resources in a functionally meaningful manner, which may in turn lead to ground-breaking regenerative treatments for stroke rehabilitation.

MICHELLE DIGMAN HAS THE MAGIC

She connects equity, samurai swords, imaging and an automated way to count and track mitochondria

VIVIEN MARX, NATURE METHODS

DEBBIE MORALES

“M

y path to faculty was definitely not standard or straight,” says Michelle Digman, an associate professor on the faculty of UCI’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, where she develops imaging techniques, shapes the department’s policies on equity matters and does outreach programs for local community college and high school students from minorities underrepresented in science. She co-directs the Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics, directs the W.M. Keck Nanoimaging Laboratory and was named an Allen Distinguished Investigator for a bioluminescence imaging project she is working on with UCI colleague Jennifer Prescher, professor of chemistry.

After obtaining her doctorate in chemistry at the University of Illinois, Chicago, Digman was a postdoctoral fellow in the physics lab of Enrico Gratton at the university’s Urbana-Champaign campus. Then she followed Gratton’s

move to UCI, where she completed her fellowship. Next, she became scientific director of UCI’s optical core. “I like helping people,” she says.

After a few years, though, she missed developing and using advanced imaging to pursue her own research and began the hunt for a faculty post. But it was right during a U.S. economic downturn. Interviews took place but universities followed up to notify her that, as a result of the downturn, they could not hire after all. “I didn’t lose hope, though,” she says. Her multidisciplinary background seemed a blemish. Even in an age that prizes interdisciplinary projects, she heard reactions in the vein of: “You’re not really a chemist or you’re not really a biologist,” she says. “It was just really hard to feel like I belonged in a department.” That changed when she started applying for posts in biomedical engineering. Universities liked her background in chemistry, physics, biology and computing.

Despite other offers, she decided to stay in Irvine, where she had already found collaborators. Staying would accelerate her ability to set up her lab, she says, and help her students “hit the ground running.” In her first year as principal investigator, she had five Ph.D. students. She welcomes people into her lab from diverse training backgrounds.

From this diverse lab now comes Mitometer: software to automate the way mitochondria are segmented and tracked in live-cell imaging and to avoid needing to piece together a computational pipeline of several tools. Digman is happy that Mitometer can capture the structure and size of mitochondria, count fission and fusion events, continuously track mitochondria, and capture their motility and velocity. Such information can be connected to metabolic data.

Mitochondria give scientists a workout. “Sometimes mitochondria can get clustered in one particular spot,” she says, which gets in the way of accurate counting. “If you

want to count them, the algorithms will just count the blob as one gigantic spot.” Austin Lefebvre, a doctoral student in Digman’s lab, worked out a way to apply fluorescence intensity thresholds to remove image noise. The software loops through images to computationally locate the mitochondria. The team applied Mitometer to synthetic data and then to confocal images of breast cancer cells and found that cancerous and noncancerous cells differed in motility and morphology. They connected that information to metabolic differences found using fluorescence lifetime imaging. Tumor cells and nontumor cells differ in the free and bound ratio of the coenzyme NADH, which is important in cellular energy production. This hints at potential ways to target mitochondria for therapeutic purposes.

Of her future plans, Digman says, “We would like to use Mitometer a lot more.” And she hopes it can be used in other labs. Neuroscientists could use it to track mitochondrial journeys in long axons, she says. After collecting a time-lapse image series and setting some parameters, labs should find the system easy to use. “Austin has made this platform, let’s say, anyoneproof.”

Anyone should also be able to enter science, which is why she has set up, in her lab, a summer week for local community college and high school students from groups underrepresented in science. Observing the students, Digman says, “I think they are really transformed.” Their tasks relate to work in her and other UCI labs. For example, they have explored using fluorescence lifetime imaging to detect how macrophage types differ in terms of metabolism.

Beyond these activities, Digman practices the martial art of Iaido, an ancient samurai-sword-drawing technique from Japan. The movements are intended to look and feel effortless. “It’s almost a meditative art form for me,” she says. Iaido is a way to develop strength and to practice a traditional martial art. “The purpose is to display an ultimate level of true and pure beauty.”

Says cell biologist Rick Horwitz, “Michelle has this extraordinary ability to bridge complex biophysical technologies with cutting edge biological problems.” Digman spent part of her postdoctoral fellowship in his lab at the University of Illinois. Others attempt such bridges without understanding the methods, or they marry methods with mundane biological problems or fail to grasp nuances of experimental cell and molecular biology, says Horwitz who is senior adviser and inaugural executive director emeritus of the Allen Institute for Cell Science.

Digman has “the magic” to make projects happen and the collaborative spirit to bring community with her, he says. “Unlike some outstanding scientists, Michelle is a wonderful colleague — generous, helpful, collaborative, a real team player, and liked by everyone.”

FACULTY ACCOLADES

KING HONORED WITH BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING TEACHING AWARD FROM ASEE

CHRISTINE KING, assistant professor of teaching of biomedical engineering, received a 2022 Biomedical Engineering Teaching Award from the American Society for Engineering Education’s Biomedical Engineering Division. She attended the annual ASEE BED conference, June 26-29, in Minneapolis, Minn.

The award recognizes contributions in the field of biomedical engineering education by new faculty members as evidenced by innovative teaching materials, curricula, textbooks and/or professional papers and by activity in ASEE/BED or other biomedical engineering organizations. The committee was impressed with King’s pioneering work in BME education at this early stage in her career.

“I’m very proud of this award, not only as a UCI professor in biomedical engineering and to show the nation what our amazing department and school has to offer, but also as a member of ASEE BED and the connections it has brought me,” said King.

“I have learned from my ASEE mentors and peers how to bring our department’s undergraduate curriculum to the level required for our current students, and how to do this in an inclusive and supportive environment. This award epitomizes the need for support both nationally and locally from our peers on how to better train our students. We can’t do it alone, and we should all learn from respecting and growing from each other.”

She added, “I’d like to thank my supportive department and colleagues, my school and the ASEE BED. Without constant collaboration and learning from each other, we will never become better educators.”

LIU HONORED WITH CHANCELLOR’S FELLOW AND MID-CAREER AWARD

CHANG LIU, professor of biomedical engineering and director of the Center for Synthetic Biology, has been recognized by the UCI campus with two recent honors.

Liu has been named a Chancellor’s Fellow, effective July 1, 2022. Chancellor’s Fellows are faculty with tenure whose recent achievements in scholarship evidence extraordinary promise for world-class contributions to knowledge, and whose pattern of contributions shows a strong trajectory to distinction. The campus title carries an award of up to $25,000 per year for three years in support of research.

Liu has also received a 2021-22 Distinguished Mid-Career Faculty Award for Research from the UCI Academic Senate. The Senate Faculty Award recipients are nominated by colleagues. The recognition is given to those who have

achieved excellence and brought significant distinction to UCI through their research, teaching, mentorship or service to the university and community. The Senate Awards provide the opportunity for faculty to recognize the outstanding achievements of colleagues and make them and their contributions better known to the UCI community and beyond.

Liu was acknowledged for his compelling work in engineering genetic systems for rapid mutation and evolution. It is among the most prestigious awards University of California faculty members can receive from their colleagues.

“I am honored to be recognized by these awards,” said Liu. “They are a testament to the dedication and creativity of the many wonderful young scientists in my group. I am also especially touched that these honors come from my colleagues and

friends at UCI. I am grateful to be in their company.”

Zoran Nenadic, chair and professor of biomedical engineering, commended Liu: “Professor Liu’s groundbreaking independent work done in the last nine years since starting at UC Irvine is characterized by exceptional innovation, originality and impact. His work is published in the very top science venues and is performed by a large group of talented and well-mentored Ph.D. students and postdocs. While already impactful, his work is still in its infancy with many groundbreaking applications ahead. Professor Liu’s research is poised to blossom for years to come as it is based on powerful new ideas and concepts that his lab has developed, ones that are reshaping synthetic biology and bioengineering.”

LEE GIVEN TITLE OF DISTINCTION

BME’s ABRAHAM LEE has been named a UCI Chancellor’s Professor. The title of distinction – granted for a five-year renewable term – recognizes professors who have demonstrated unusual academic merit and whose continued promise for scholarly achievement is unusually high.

Lee’s research contributions are in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), BioMEMS and microfluidics or lab-on-a-chip technologies. Early in his career, he developed microactuators for microsurgical devices and later applied these technologies to the lab-on-a-chip/ microfluidics field. Notable microfluidic technologies pioneered in Lee’s lab include the magnetohydrodynamic micropump, dielectrophoresis for cell sorting, droplet microfluidics and cavity-bubble acoustic streaming transducers.

Recently, Lee’s research interests are in microfluidic precision medicine and include sorting and purification of stem cells, single cell analysis, hybrid particles for ultrasound-assisted drug delivery, point-ofcare diagnostics, blood sample preparation, liquid biopsy and microfluidic devices for perfused vascular 3D tissue constructs. He is director of the Center for Advanced Design and Manufacturing of Integrated Microfluidics (CADMIM), an NSF Industry/University Collaborative Research Center.

Lee’s research has contributed to the founding of several startup companies. He owns 55 issued U.S. patents and is author of more than 120 journals articles. Lee was awarded the 2009 Pioneers of Miniaturization Prize and is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, Royal Society of Chemistry, American Society of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering Society.

FOUR UCI BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING FACULTY NAMED AIMBE FELLOWS

ELLIOT BOTVINICK, MICHELLE DIGMAN, CHANG LIU and WENDY LIU are among 152 medical and biological engineers who were inducted into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering’s College of Fellows Class of 2022.

Each was selected for their outstanding contributions in their field. A prestigious professional distinction, the College of Fellows represents the top 2% of medical and biological engineers in the country.

Professor Botvinick was recognized for work in biophotonics and its use in medical devices and the study of biophysics in cell-tissue interactions. In his research, Botvinick studies the relationship between mechanical stresses on cells and molecular signaling or mechanotransduction.

“I will continue to devote my life to improving our understanding of how cells sense tissues and to develop new technologies to aid in the treatment of diabetes,” he said. As an AIMBE fellow, I will embark on the next chapter of my career, which is to invent, develop, test and commercialize unprofitable medical devices for underserved groups, particularly in pediatrics. And more importantly, to build and share the resources for other scientists to do the same.”

Associate Professor Digman was acknowledged for her contributions to the development of and applications to fluorescence fluctuation spectroscopy and fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy. Digman’s research focuses on quantitative spatial and temporal correlation spectroscopy, protein dynamics during cell migration, characterizing metabolic alterations in cells and tissues, and developing novel imaging technologies.

“I want to thank my past and present group members, as well as collaborators for making so many things possible during this research journey,” said Digman. “I’m also excited to support AIMBE’s mission of advocacy in the field of biomedical engineering.”

The AIMBE selected Professor Chang Liu for his efforts in the fields of synthetic biology and directed evolution through the invention of in vivo hypermutation systems. He engineers specialized genetic systems that continuously and rapidly mutate user-selected genes in vivo. These systems allow researchers to evolve proteins at unprecedented speed, scale and depth in order to engineer new protein functions, probe the rules of evolution and understand the fundamental sequence-function relationships governing proteins and other macromolecules.

“I am delighted to be elected into the fellowship and look forward to fruitful interactions and endeavors with other members,” said Liu.

Professor Wendy Liu was recognized for contributions and service to the cell and tissue engineering community and advancing the field of immune cell mechanobiology. She uses bioengineering approaches to understand how the microenvironment regulates immune cell plasticity and immune-mediated wound healing. She is studying macrophages, innate immune cells that adopt a spectrum of functional phenotypes depending on their context and that play a major role in wound healing and disease.

“I am honored and excited to receive this recognition from AIMBE,” she said. “I am also extremely grateful for the wonderful colleagues at UCI who have provided a supportive environment, and all of my collaborators and students who have contributed to our work.”

AIMBE’s mission is to recognize excellence, advance public understanding, and accelerate medical and biological innovation. Its College of Fellows includes over 1,500 honorees who work in academia, industry, clinical practice and government.

DING RECOGNIZED FOR EXCEPTIONAL TEACHING

FANGYUAN DING, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, was honored as part of the 2022 UCI Celebration of Teaching.

The event, coordinated by the Division of Teaching Excellence and Innovation, recognizes faculty, instructors and teaching assistants who have demonstrated excellence in undergraduate teaching. Nominated by peers, students and staff, awardees exemplify exceptional teaching across six award categories. This year’s event included a presentation of celebratory videos.

Ding received the Excellence in Pedagogical Development award, which acknowledges an instructor who has spent considerable time and effort engaging in various pedagogical development opportunities. This could include personal development, mentoring graduate students, or providing development opportunities to colleagues or departments.

“It is really an honor to win the Pedagogical Development Award this year,” said Ding, who was moved by the recognition. “To be very honest, I almost teared up when I saw the kind words from my nominator students. As junior faculty, I have done a lot of thinking about my teaching strategies, and now I know all my efforts have paid off.”

KHINE NAMED INAUGURAL SAMUELI FELLOW

MICHELLE KHINE, biomedical engineering professor and associate dean for the Division of Undergraduate Education, has been named one of six inaugural Samueli Scholars by the UCI Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute.

The Samueli Scholars Award Program recognizes faculty whose achievements show extraordinary promise to advance basic, translational or clinical scholarship in integrative health and have a history of contributions of national distinction in their disciplines.

Her research involves developing innovative, low-cost and scalable point-of-care and continuous physiological monitoring solutions, including respiratory and blood pressure sensors. A fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and AIMBE, Khine blends her engineering research with entrepreneurship and has co-founded six start-up companies.

Khine’s current research goals are to implement integrative health interventions while monitoring patients’ response in real time. This includes a project to employ mindfulness training in children with severe autism as well as to monitor the physiological signals of meditative practice on stress reduction. With this work, she hopes to better understand the magnitude and temporal response to meditation, offering insight into the immediate benefits of meditation practice.

PROFESSOR EMERITUS MICHAEL BERNS

MICHAEL BERNS, UC Irvine

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Surgery and Biomedical Engineering, died at his home on Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022. The founding director of the UCI Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic served on the UCI faculty for nearly half a century.

Berns earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Cornell University in 1964 and 1968, respectively. He came to UCI from the University of Michigan in 1973. He served as chair of the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology within the School of Biological Sciences, and also held appointments in the School of Medicine and Samueli School of Engineering. Berns co-founded, with Arnold Beckman, the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic in 1982 and served as its director until 2003. He was the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Professor from 1988-2020. Berns also founded the first Laser Microbeam Program and the UCI Photonic Incubator.

According to biomedical engineering department Chair Zoran Nenadic, in an email to the department staff and faculty, “Although a cell biologist by training, Michael was keenly aware that modern biological discoveries would be increasingly reliant on technological solutions. When Dr. Arnold Beckman showed up at Michael’s lab on a rainy morning four decades ago, he was fascinated by Michael’s work on laser microscopy and immediately recognized its potential. His endowment led to the creation of the world-renowned Beckman Laser Institute.”

Berns was also instrumental in pursuing the formation of UCI’s BME department. “Since a great deal of his work was in engineering and there was no bioengineering department at UCI, Michael, together with Bruce Tromberg and Steve George, had a vision to create one,” wrote Nenadic. “In 1998, they applied to the Whitaker Foundation Development Award, which was responsible for seeding many bioengineering/biomedical engineering departments nationwide. While easily the least developed program at the time, this group of enthusiasts shocked the BME world by winning the award. Michael, who was the principal investigator on the proposal, and the research infrastructure

that he had built at the BLI were instrumental in persuading the reviewers.”

Berns’ pioneering work focused on the use of laser technology in medical and biological research. He developed tools and techniques for the surgical use of lasers, down to the level of manipulating single cells and individual chromosomes. He published extensively on the use of lasers in both biomedical research and medical treatment of illnesses, including skin disorders, vascular disease, eye problems and cancer.

Berns was an elected fellow/member in numerous scientific and engineering societies, including the Royal Society of Biology of Great Britain, the Academy of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery. Most recently, he was recognized by the International Society for Optics and Photonics with the 2022 SPIE Gold Medal. In 1994, he was awarded the UCI Medal – the highest award at UCI for outstanding career achievements.

Berns’ scientific achievements were numerous and impactful. His work has been cited over 26,000 times, spanning the fields of developmental biology, DNA repair, mechanobiology, the cytoskeleton, fertility, preservation of endangered species and immunology, to name just a few.

Berns mentored former BLI director and current National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering Director Bruce Tromberg, as well as several UCI professors, including Vasan Venugopalan, Elliot Botvinick and Daryl Preece. “He artfully blended strong leadership with kindness, care and generosity toward budding scientists of all ages,” said Nenadic. “He will be dearly missed.”

Said UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman, in a message to the campus community, “Michael Berns will be greatly missed by his friends and professional colleagues around the world. The entire university community joins me in sending condolences to his devoted children, Greg and Tammy.”

AT THE HEART OF O.C.’S MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY ECOSYSTEM

UCI’s Edwards Lifesciences Foundation Cardiovascular Innovation and Research Center enters new era with latest philanthropic gift

NATIONAL

INSTITUTES OF HEALTH EXPERTS SAY THAT PEOPLE WHO ARE FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO SURVIVE A BRUSH WITH COVID-19 MAY GO ON TO SUFFER POOR CARDIOVASCULAR HEALTH IN THE FUTURE BECAUSE OF THE INFECTION. As these millions stand to join others with heart disease – the leading killer of men and women worldwide – the need for affordable, accessible, advanced treatments is becoming increasingly urgent.

Scientists and engineers in UCI’s Edwards Lifesciences Foundation Cardiovascular Innovation and Research Center have been anticipating this outcome since the early days of the pandemic. Anna Grosberg, associate professor of biomedical engineering, has assembled a team of her doctoral, master’s and undergraduate students for a project investigating the impact of coronaviruscaused hypoxia on the heart.

BRIAN BELL STEVE ZYLIUS

“With the generous support of Edwards Foundation, we can explore new directions and take advantage of more opportunities, which are essential to research and innovation,” says Naomi Chesler, UCI Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Professor of biomedical engineering.

“Chronic heart conditions already were a significant challenge for the medical technologies community to tackle, and now that we can expect multitudes of postCOVID-19 cardiovascular illness cases to occur in the coming years, we really have our work cut out for us,” said Grosberg, a tissue engineering specialist who joined the research center in 2012.

She is one of seven fully dedicated faculty members in CIRC, which also includes nearly 20 affiliated faculty researchers. A highly productive group, CIRC core faculty have more than 200 publications to their names since the center was founded in 2009. And in that time, they have graduated 39 Ph.D. and 25 master’s students and have been awarded more than $70 million in research funding.

This is the sort of outcome that the leaders at Edwards Lifesciences were hoping for with their initial investment of $5 million from Edwards Lifesciences Foundation in 2007 that led to the establishment of the center. This year, Edwards made a renewed gift of $2.2 million to aid in the recruitment and hiring of CIRC’s new director, Naomi Chesler, UCI Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Professor of biomedical engineering.

Her long-standing commitment to serving underrepresented people in the healthcare setting is one quality that appealed to senior figures at the Edwards Lifesciences Foundation, according to Amanda Fowler, Edwards’ head of global corporate giving.

“Dr. Chesler’s expertise in, commitment to and passion for addressing health disparities is a huge advantage for UCI’s Cardiovascular Innovation and Research Center,” says Fowler. “We continue to be impressed with and learn from her insights into how medical technologies are innovated and engineered, and then how their application can differ due to ethnicity or gender. Deep understanding of health disparities is critical to the charitable work of our Every Heartbeat Matters

initiative and to achieving our commitment to improving the lives of underserved structural heart and critical care patients around the world.”

In its 12-year history, CIRC has become firmly entrenched in Orange County’s medical technologies ecosystem, in which Irvine-based Edwards Lifesciences is a major force. Those graduating from UCI with degrees in biomedical engineering and other fields have filled the pipeline of talent to large firms as well as the many startups headquartered in the area. Edwards itself employs more than 500 UCI graduates, according to the UCI Alumni Association.

“Our philanthropic support and engagement with academic institutions like UCI is one way Edwards Lifesciences is investing to help innovation thrive here in Orange County,” says Mike Mussallem, Edwards’ chairman and CEO, who is also a trustee of the UCI Foundation. “Collaboration among industry, academia and even healthcare providers in our region is critical to building up O.C. as a place where people want to stay, grow and thrive, making our community even stronger.”

Fowler says that one of the components of the latest $2 million funding phase – a new internship program – is designed to help train UCI students in some of the softer skills necessary to succeed in the medical technology industry. It will include opportunities for them to engage in peer-to-peer mentoring with Edwards employees and even receive guidance from the company’s leaders.

“UCI’s students are incredibly bright and educated, and an element that would help them thrive in a medtech environment like Edwards – where relationships, networking and connection are essential – are the softer skills of working across many different functions within a corporation,” she says.

The center has a variety of offerings for students, including the Edwards Summer Undergraduate Research Program, which

“ Our philanthropic support and engagement with academic institutions like UCI is one way Edwards Lifesciences is investing to help innovation thrive here in Orange County. ”

has, so far, served 85 participants. The center also was awarded a Cardiovascular Applied Research and Entrepreneurship T32 training grant by the NIH in 2013; that program has resulted in more than a dozen beneficiaries accepting roles in industry and professional schools; 15 more are currently in training. The center also hosts the CardioStart Summer Program for high school students, which moved to a virtual format in 2020.

“With the generous support of Edwards Foundation, we can explore new directions and take advantage of more opportunities, which are essential to research and innovation,” says Chesler. “In addition, the Edwards Foundation commitment to underserved populations is aligned with the mission and vision of the center to accelerate advances in cardiovascular health and health equity.”

She adds: “In the future, I hope we are known as a center of inclusive excellence in cardiovascular science and engineering research and innovation, that our members are discovering better, faster and more accessible ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cardiovascular disease, and that our trainees are the next generation of diverse leaders in cardiovascular science, engineering and technology.”

(top) “Collaboration among industry, academia and even healthcare providers in our region is critical to building up O.C. as a place where people want to stay, grow and thrive, making our community even stronger,” says Mike Mussallem, Edwards Lifesciences’ chairman and CEO.

(bottom) Timothy Downing, associate professor of biomedical engineering, images genetically modified stem cells in his laboratory to confirm their expression of a reporter gene.

Downing’s research in the Edwards Lifesciences Foundation Cardiovascular Innovation and Research Center focuses on understanding how gene regulatory mechanisms contribute to stem cell differentiation on the progress of diseases and cellular aging.

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS

BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING GRADUATE STUDENT ALEXANDER

(OLEK) PISERA IS ONE OF 30 GRADUATE STUDENTS NATIONWIDE NAMED A 2022 PAUL & DAISY SOROS FELLOWS.

The Soros Fellowships for New Americans is a merit-based graduate school program for immigrants and children of immigrants. Fellows are selected for their potential to make significant contributions to the United States and receive up to $90,000 in funding to support their graduate studies.

Pisera is interested in the application and development of new technologies specifically enabled by developments in DNA synthesis and screening. He is building a synthetic biological system that could allow for discovery of antibodies against classes of mammalian cell surface proteins that have been inaccessible with current technologies.

“Synthetic biology is a field that requires extremely precise experimentation and patience,” said Pisera. “Success in building a system combining parts from different species requires stacking a series of carefully derived truths. In the end, a well-built system can provide an impossibly precise and useful medicine or research tool that can change the world.”

“I am proud to win this fellowship and join a community of immigrants and children of immigrants who are making a place for themselves in the U.S.,” said Pisera, who is the second graduate student at UCI to win a Soros Fellowship.

KAREN LOPEZ, A BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING DOCTORAL STUDENT, WAS SELECTED FOR THE LATINO EXCELLENCE AND ACHIEVEMENT AWARD. Cosponsored by UCI’s Latinx Resource Center and the Office of Inclusive Excellence, the award honors one graduate student for research excellence and academic achievement from each of the university’s schools. Lopez was recognized, along with all the other winners, at the Latino Excellence Achievement Dinner last March.

A first-generation Latina, Lopez is the first in her family to enroll in a graduate degree program and the first woman in her family to study engineering. She earned a bachelor’s degree from San Jose State University in 2020.

Lopez combines science, engineering and mentoring to tackle cancer therapy’s fundamental problems. In her first year as a graduate student, Lopez took an active role in the BME Diversity and Inclusion Task Force, with the goal of improving the mental health of her fellow graduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The LEAD banquet opened my eyes to the power of the Latinx community at UCI. It was exhilarating to witness the collective pride of being a part of this community and to be able to share it with my immigrant parents, who celebrated this achievement with me,” said Lopez.

THE UCI GRADUATE DIVISION AWARDED A DISSERTATION FELLOWSHIP TO BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING GRADUATE STUDENT AUSTIN LEFEBVRE. The award is for doctoral or master’s degree students in their final year of graduate education, allowing them to forgo nonresearch-related employment and to concentrate on completing their dissertation or thesis.

Lefebvre’s research focuses on understanding how cellular metabolism affects the spread of cancer and is working towards unveiling important therapeutic vulnerabilities that can be leveraged to specifically target metastatic cancer cells and prevent the spread and recurrence of even the most aggressive cancers.

“It is already known just how dysregulated the metabolism becomes in primary tumor cells, but these processes during tumor invasion, and at secondary sites are still not well understood,” said Lefebvre. For his research, he is using a method to nondestructively and nonobtrusively monitor subcellular metabolic shifts within individual cancer cells in scaffolds made of materials with compositions and densities similar to native tissue.

“I felt absolutely honored to have received this award,” said Lefebvre. “My research wouldn’t have been possible without the help of my wonderful mentor, and the brilliant ideas and help from my collaborators and lab mates.”

NINAZ VALISHARIFABAD

RECEIVED THE 2021 MAXINE E. NEVIN LEIDER SCHOLARSHIP IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERS CATEGORY. After graduating from UCI’s undergraduate biomedical engineering program in 2020, Valisharifabad is continuing her studies as a graduate student. Her main interest is the way the heart and brain function together.

“I love it, honestly,” she said. “If we figure out how these two function, then we can solve a lot of problems. It’s going to be really helpful because, right now, the understanding is limited.”

Her interest in biomedical engineering comes from her grandfather, who passed away three years ago after a long fight against the aftermath of a surgery gone wrong.

“And so that was the time I said, ‘I wish I could do something for him,’” Valisharifabad recalled. “He had the ability to talk, smile, laugh, all as usual. But he couldn’t walk anymore, and he quickly lost his confidence and later on became depressed.”

Valisharifabad was saddened by this lack of confidence and depression, and she decided to do something. In her time as an undergraduate, she took a course with Christine King, BME assistant professor of teaching. During the course, they built a wheelchair designed to help developing countries access a cheaper wheelchair with more functionality.

BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

UNDERGRADUATE LESLIE

RANGEL IS ONE OF FOUR UCI MATHEMATICS, ENGINEERING, SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT (MESA) STUDENT LEADERS WHO CONNECTED WITH INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS IN SILICON VALLEY DURING AN INVITE-ONLY STEM CONFERENCE LAST WINTER.

MESA’s Student Leadership Conference brought together hand-picked engineering and computer science students with industry to develop the next generation of STEM leaders. Unlike job fairs or speaker-only conferences, MESA student leaders had the unique opportunity to interact one-on-one and in small groups with company executives, engineers and recruiters. Students participated in mock interviews, communications, team building, emotional intelligence and financial literacy workshops. Many students often leave the conference with internship offers that lead to full-time employment.

“The MESA Student Leadership Conference provided an incredible opportunity for me to gain invaluable career development skills and network with leading industry professionals to kick-start my STEM career,” said Rangel.

The MESA program, with its 51-year history, guides diverse students from underrepresented backgrounds into STEM education and careers.

CHEERLEADING FOR SCIENCE

Postdoctoral scholar Wendy Brown roots for young women to pursue STEM

TONYA BECERRA

Cheerleading or science, pom poms or microscopes? Does one have to choose? Not according to Wendy Brown, postdoctoral scholar in biomedical engineering and former NFL cheerleader. Both are shared loves for Brown, and she uses her own experience to inspire young girls to follow her path into STEM.

Brown, a 2020 L’Oréal For Women in Science Fellow, works with Kyriacos Athanasiou, Distinguished Professor of biomedical engineering. Athanasiou’s interdisciplinary research group focuses on understanding the healing processes of cartilage and augmenting those processes via sound application of tissue engineering principles. Brown is researching the engineering of cartilage for facial reconstruction.

But for the past 10 years as a member of Science Cheerleaders, she has taken the time to encourage girls and young women to pursue STEM studies and careers. She currently serves as director of outreach and was recently interviewed by FloCheer.

Here, she shares why she’s a cheerleader for STEM.

How would you describe the Science Cheerleaders program?

The Science Cheerleaders are a national nonprofit organization of over 300 current and former professional and collegiate cheerleaders with degrees and careers in STEM. We lead science-themed cheers and hands-on STEM learning opportunities to playfully challenge stereotypes and leverage girls’ interests in activities they already like doing (cheerleading and dancing) to defuse the intimidation of science. Our goals are to inspire, engage and empower girls to pursue their dreams in STEM, and show them that the skills they have developed as cheerleaders and dancers will help make them great as STEM professionals.

How long have you been involved?

I’ve been involved with the Science Cheerleaders since 2011. As soon as I learned about the organization, I knew I wanted to join. Growing up, I really

struggled to reconcile my interests in dancing and science. I was well into college at Georgia Tech before I fully realized that I could be successful at both.

For me, the turning point was working with a mentor I could relate to. She was a physician running her own practice and had been the feature twirler at Georgia Tech, while earning her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering. She also was crowned Miss Georgia while she was in medical school. She believed in me and served as an example of what was achievable.

From then on, I was more confident in unapologetically pursuing my goals in both science and dancing/cheerleading and no longer saw them as mutually exclusive. At the time, I was on Georgia Tech’s Goldrush Dance Team and served as the captain in my last year. I went on to cheer professionally for a total of seven years for the Atlanta Falcons, Sacramento Kings and Oakland (now Las Vegas) Raiders, and I served as line captain for the Raiders, all while finishing my undergraduate degree and doctorate in biomedical engineering. Because of my experiences, the mission of the Science Cheerleaders is very near and dear to my heart.

What is your role?

In addition to being one of the Science Cheerleaders, I serve as the director of outreach. I help develop new STEM materials and activities that the Science Cheerleaders use at our events. I work with the other directors and our founder, Darlene Cavalier, to form new partnerships and plan events, such as our most recent one at the Pop Warner National Cheer and Dance Championships. As a Science Cheerleader, I attend these events to meet girls, talk to them about our love of science, lead them through hands-on STEM activities and perform science-themed dances and cheers.

What is one of the best things you’ve seen as part of the program?

I love seeing what I call a “lightbulb moment,” when it’s obvious that someone’s thinking has been recalibrated. When we talk to young girls, it’s common for them

to initially be shy or embarrassed to admit that they like science. So, it’s extremely rewarding to see them open up and become more confident about their interests after we talk and work with them. I’ve even heard girls excitedly say, “I can’t wait for science class!” as they walk away from our meeting.

Another really important transition I love to see is in the attitude of parents. Frequently parents feel that for their girls to be successful or taken seriously in science and math, they need to give up their “girly” hobbies, like cheerleading, to completely focus on school. We try to show the parents that you can indeed pursue both and that our careers in cheer and dance have actually contributed to successes in our science careers.

What do you hope to achieve?

Overall, I would love to see more women in professional STEM careers and to know that the obstacles they face along the way are becoming lower and fewer. I hope that I can contribute to that by making science “cool” and by inspiring girls to stay interested in science at the pivotal age when they frequently lose interest (usually 6-8th grade). I hope that these young women can learn from my journey and the experiences of the other Science Cheerleaders to have the confidence to pursue their dreams without having to go through the same hardships that we did.

Pictured, center, at the Pop Warner National Cheer and Dance Championship, is Wendy Brown, postdoctoral scholar in biomedical engineering, who as director of outreach for Science Cheerleaders inspires girls to pursue their dreams in STEM.

DIRECTORY

Zoran Nenadic, D.Sc.

William J. Link Chair and Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Research Interests: adaptive biomedical signal processing, control algorithms for biomedical devices, brain-machine interfaces, modeling and analysis of biological neural networks

Kyriacos Athanasiou, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering Research Interests: understanding and enhancing the healing processes of musculoskeletal tissues as well as the body’s cartilaginous tissues; applying the translation of engineering innovations to clinical use, especially in terms of instruments and devices

Elliot Botvinick, Ph.D.

Professor of Surgery, Biomedical Engineering Research Interests: laser microbeams, cellular mechanotransduction, mechanobiology

Gregory J. Brewer, Ph.D.

Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Research Interests: neuronal networks, decoding brain learning and memory, brain-inspired computing, Alzheimer’s disease, brain aging, neuron cell culture

James Brody, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Research Interests: bioinformatics, micro-nanoscale systems

Zhongping Chen, Ph.D.

Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Surgery

Research Interests: biomedical optics, optical coherence tomography, bioMEMS, biomedical devices

Naomi Chesler, Ph.D.

Director of the Edwards Lifesciences Foundation Cardiovascular Innovation and Research Center; Professor of Biomedical Engineering Research Interests: cardiovascular mechanobiology and biomechanics; engineering education; diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM

Bernard Choi, Ph.D.

Professor of Surgery, Biomedical Engineering

Research Interests: biomedical optics, in vivo optical imaging, microvasculature, light-based therapeutics

Michelle Digman, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Research Interests: biophotonics, fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy, nanoscale imaging, mechanotransduction, cancer cell migration, fluorescence lifetime and metabolic mapping

Fangyuan Ding, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering Research Interests: quantitative single molecule biology and engineering, systems biology, nucleic-acid-based therapies, single cell research tool developments

Tim Downing, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics

Research Interests: stem cell and tissue engineering, regenerative biology, cell reprogramming, epigenomics, mechanobiology

Anthony Durkin, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Research Interests: spatial fre quency domain imaging, wide-field functional imaging, quantitative near-infrared spectroscopy of superficial tissues, chemometrics, flu orescence spectroscopy, quantitative spectral imaging

Enrico Gratton, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Physics and Astronomy

Research Interests: design of new fluorescence instruments, protein dynamics, single molecule, fluorescence microscopy, photon migration in tissues

Anna Grosberg, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Research Interests: computational modeling of biological systems, biomechanics, cardiac tissue engineering

Jered Haun, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering

Research Interests: nanotechnology, molecular engineering, computational simulations, targeted drug delivery, clinical cancer detection

Elliot E. Hui, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Research Interests: microscale tissue engineering, bioMEMS, cell-cell interactions, global health diagnostics

Tibor Juhasz, Ph.D.

Professor of Ophthalmology, Biomedical Engineering

Research Interests: laser-tissue interactions, high-precision microsurgery with lasers, laser applications in ophthalmology, corneal biomechanics

Arash Kheradvar, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Research Interests: cardiac mechanics, cardiovascular devices, cardiac imaging

Michelle Khine, Ph.D.

Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering

Research Interests: development of novel nano- and microfabrication technologies and systems for single cell analysis, stem cell research, in vitro diagnostics

Christine King, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Teaching Biomedical Engineering

Research Interests: engineering and STEM education, active learning, wireless health systems, rehabilitation, brain-computer interfaces, robotics

Frithjof Kruggel, M.D.

Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Research Interests: biomedical signal and image processing, anatomical and functional neuroimaging in humans, structure-function relationship in the human brain

Abraham P. Lee, Ph.D.

Chancellor’s Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Research Interests: lab-ona-chip health monitoring instruments, drug delivery micro/nanoparticles, integrated cell-sorting microdevices, lipid vesicles as carriers for cells and biomolecules, high-throughput droplet bioassays, microfluidic tactile sensors

Chang C. Liu, Ph.D.

Professor and Chancellor’s Fellow of Biomedical Engineering, Molecular Biology, Biochemistry

Research Interests: genetic engineering, directed evolution, synthetic biology, chemical biology

Wendy F. Liu, Ph.D.

Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Research Interests: biomaterials, microdevices in cardiovascular engineering, cell-cell and cellmicro-environment interactions, cell functions and controls

Beth A. Lopour, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Research Interests: computational neuroscience, signal processing, mathematical modeling, epilepsy, translational research

Joshua Mauney, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Urology Research Interests: tissue engineering of urogenital, gastrointestinal and respiratory hollow organs; silk fibroin biomaterials, cellular and molecular mechanisms of tissue regeneration following surgical reconstruction

Thomas Milner, Ph.D.

Director of Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic, Professor of Surgery, Biomedical Engineering Research Interests: opticalbased therapeutics and diagnostic imaging, biomedical optics sensors, optical tomography

Ronke Olabisi, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Samueli Faculty Development Chair

Research Interests: orthopedic tissue engineering and regenerative medicine for injury, aging, disease and space flight

NEW FACULTY MEMBER

Pim Oomen, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Research Interests: cardiovascular biomechanics, electrophysiology, growth & remodeling, patient-specific modeling

Daryl Preece, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Research Interests: nano-optics, neuro-photonics, optical forces and mechanotransduction, singular optics and biophotonics

William C. Tang, Ph.D.

Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Research Interests: micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) nanoscale engineering for biomedical applications, microsystems integration, microimplants, microbiomechanics, microfluidics

Bruce Tromberg, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus of Surgery, Biomedical Engineering Research Interests: photon migration, diffuse optical imaging, non-linear optical microscopy, photodynamic therapy

Liangzhong (Shawn) Xiang, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Radiological Sciences, Biomedical Engineering

Research Interests: X-rayinduced acoustic computed tomography for in vivo radiation dosimetry & radiology, fast proton-induced acoustic imaging for precision proton therapy, and electroacoustic tomography guided electroporation

AFFILIATED FACULTY

Tayloria Adams, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Alpesh N. Amin, M.D.

Thomas & Mary Cesario Chair and Professor of Medicine; Biomedical Engineering; Paul Merage School of Business; Program in Nursing Science

Herdeline Ardoña, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Pierre F. Baldi, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor of Computer Science; Biological Chemistry; Biomedical Engineering; Developmental and Cell Biology

Kevin Beier, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, Biomedical Engineering

Bruce Blumberg, Ph.D.

Professor of Developmental and Cell Biology; Biomedical Engineering; Environmental Health Sciences; Pharmaceutical Sciences

Andrew Browne, M.D.

Assistant Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology; Biomedical Engineering

Peter J. Burke, Ph.D.

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Biomedical Engineering; Materials Science and Engineering

Hung Cao, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Biomedical Engineering

Dan M. Cooper, M.D. Professor of Pediatrics; Biomedical Engineering

Nancy A. Da Silva, Ph.D.

Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Biomedical Engineering

Hamid Djalilian, M.D.

Professor of Otolaryngology; Biomedical Engineering

James Earthman, Ph.D.

Professor of Materials Science and Engineering; Biomedical Engineering

Rahim Esfandyar-Pour, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Biomedical Engineering

Gregory R. Evans, M.D.

Professor of Surgery; Biomedical Engineering

Lisa Flanagan-Monuki, Ph.D.

Professor of Neurology; Biomedical Engineering

Ron Frostig, Ph.D.

Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior; Biomedical Engineering

Zhibin Guan, Ph.D.

Professor of Chemistry; Biomedical Engineering

Gultekin Gulsen, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Radiological Sciences; Biomedical Engineering; Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Physics and Astronomy

Ranjan Gupta, M.D.

Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery; Anatomy and Neurobiology; Biomedical Engineering

Frank P. Hsu, M.D.

Department Chair and Professor of Neurosurgey; Biomedical Engineering; Otolaryngology

Lan Huang, Ph.D.

Professor of Physiology & Biophysics; Biomedical Engineering

Christopher Hughes, Ph.D.

Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry; Biomedical Engineering

Kei Igarashi, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Anatomy and Neurobiology

James V. Jester, Ph.D.

Professor in Residence, Ophthalmology; Biomedical Engineering

Joyce H. Keyak, Ph.D.

Professor in Residence of Radiological Sciences; Biomedical Engineering; Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Baruch D. Kuppermann, M.D.

Professor of Ophthalmology; Biomedical Engineering

Young Jik Kwon, Ph.D.

Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences; Biomedical Engineering; Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Molecular Biology and Biochemistry

Arthur D. Lander, Ph.D

Donald Bren Professor of Developmental and Cell Biology; Biomedical Engineering; Logic and Philosophy of Science; Pharmacology

Guann-Pyng Li, Ph.D.

Director of the UCI Division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology; Director of the Integrated Nanosystems Research Facility and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Biomedical Engineering; Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Han Li, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Ken Lin, M.D.

Associate Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology

John Lowengrub, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor of Mathematics; Biomedical Engineering; Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Ray Luo, Ph.D.

Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry; Biomedical Engineering

Marc J. Madou, Ph.D.

UCI Distinguished Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Biomedical Engineering; Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

John Middlebrooks, Ph.D.

Professor of Otolaryngology; Biomedical Engineering; Cognitive Sciences; Neurobiology and Behavior

Sabee Molloi, Ph.D.

Professor of Radiological Sciences; Biomedical Engineering

Jogeshwar Mukherjee, Ph.D.

Professor and Director, Preclinical Imaging; Radiological Sciences, School of Medicine; Biomedical Engineering

J. Stuart Nelson, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor of Surgery; Biomedical Engineering

Qing Nie, Ph.D.

Professor of Mathematics; Biomedical Engineering

Brian Paegel, Ph.D.

Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biomedical Engineering

Pranav Patel, M.D.

Chief, Division of Cardiology; Director of Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory and Cardiac Care Unit (CCU) and Health Sciences Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine; Biomedical Engineering

Medha Pathak, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Physiology and Biophysics; Biomedical Engineering

Eric Potma, Ph.D.

Professor of Chemistry; Biomedical Engineering

David J. Reinkensmeyer, Ph.D.

Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology; Biomedical Engineering; Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

Terence Sanger, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering

Phillip C-Y Sheu, Ph.D. Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Biomedical Engineering; Computer Science

Xiaoyu Shi, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Developmental and Cell Biology

Andrei M. Shkel, Ph.D.

Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Biomedical Engineering; Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Seunghyun Sim, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry; Biomedical Engineering

Zuzanna S. Siwy, Ph.D.

Professor of Physics and Astronomy; Biomedical Engineering; Chemistry

Quinton Smith, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Ramesh Srinivasan, Ph.D.

Professor of Cognitive Sciences; Biomedical Engineering

Julian Thayer, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor, Psychological Sciences

Peter Tseng, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Biomedical Engineering

Vasan Venugopalan, Sc.D.

Department Chair and Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Biomedical Engineering; Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Materials Science and Engineering

Dean Wang, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Orthopaedic Surgery

Szu-Wen Wang, Ph.D.

Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Biomedical Engineering

H. Kumar Wickramasinghe, Ph.D.

Henry Samueli Endowed Chair in Engineering; Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Biomedical Engineering; Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Brian Wong, M.D. Professor of Otolaryngology; Biomedical Engineering

Xiangmin Xu, Ph.D.

Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology; Biomedical Engineering; Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Microbiology and Molecular Genetics

Albert Fan Yee, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Biomedical Engineering

Fan-Gang Zeng, Ph.D.

Director of Hearing Research and Professor of Otolaryngology; Anatomy and Neurobiology; Biomedical Engineering; Cognitive Sciences

Zhuoli Zhang, M.D., Ph.D. Professor of Radiology

Weian Zhao, Ph.D.

Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences; Biomedical Engineering

EXECUTIVE ADVISORY BOARD

Zoran Nenadic

UC Irvine

Bill Link

Versant Ventures

David Cuccia

Modulated Imaging

Bruce Feuchter

Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth

Stanton Rowe

NXT Biomedical

Thomas Yuen

PrimeGen Biotech

Nicolaos Alexopoulos

Broadcom Foundation

Vasudev Bailey

Quid

Thomas Frinzi

Johnson & Johnson Vision

Thomas Burns

Glaukos Corp.

David Bardin Glaukos Corp.

Ana, CA

University of California, Irvine

Samueli School of Engineering

of Biomedical Engineering

Natural Sciences II Irvine, CA 92697-2715

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