Faculty

A research team from UC Davis Biomedical Engineering has recently been awarded a $3.1 million, two-year grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) for an innovative medical device that could improve treatment outcomes and the quality of life for the more than two million people throughout the world who are on hemodialysis.

Simon Cherry, distinguished professor in the biomedical engineering department at UC Davis College of Engineering, was recently awarded the 2022 Benedict Cassen Prize from the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. Cherry was recognized for his 30-plus-year career, which includes being the co-leader on developing the world’s first total-body PET scanner.

Eleven third-year biomedical engineering UC Davis students were welcomed into the inaugural Biomedical Engineering in Sacramento experience offered through the Quarter at Aggie Square (QAS) Program this fall by Diana Farmer, chair of the surgery department, and Allison Brashear, Dean of the School of Medicine, two of the champions of the collaboration with UC Davis, Aggie Square and the Medical Center. The QAS program is an immersive academic experience program that brings UC Davis undergraduate students to Sacramento to benefit from learning at the health campus and surrounding area.

Sanjeevi Sivasankar’s laboratory recently received a second National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 grant for research into how cells control adhesion, their ‘stickiness’ to other cells or surfaces.  

Research in Laura Marcu’s laboratory promotes better diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of human diseases through advancements in biophotonics technology – a field at the interface of physical sciences, engineering, biology, and medicine.  

They have received their third National Institutes for Health grant for continuing work on the clinical applications of fluorescent lifetime imaging (FLIm) for diagnostic and surgical purposes.  

Unlike the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, the synthetic bacteria in Cheemeng Tan’s lab will not find a way to replicate. As he explains, ‘We will modify our synthetic bacteria using a method that turns them into controllable living micromachines.’ That means clinicians will be able to administer them in a controlled way for medical applications, including delivering medicine within the body, CRISPR-Cas gene editing, killing cancer cells, and administering probiotics and oral vaccines.

Originally posted in UC Davis Magazine by Narimes Parakul