A team led by Professors Kevin Healy and Niren Murthy have developed a microfluidic heart-on-a-chip, with which they were able to discover a lipid nanoparticle that could penetrate the dense heart muscle and efficiently deliver its cargo of therapeutic mRNA into heart muscle cells. This new drug delivery method and testing platform may pave the way to new cardiac treatments.

Adjunct Professor Taner Sen and his colleagues at the USDA and beyond have assembled and annotated the genomes of 33 wild and domesticated oat lines, along with an atlas of gene expression across in 23 of these lines, which will enable future efforts to even more hardy and productive strains of the popular grain.

Assistant Professor Victor Ortega-Jiménez and his lab have discovered that jumping entomopathogenic nematodes can be electrostatically attracted by the natural electric fields of the flying insects, thus increasing the effectiveness attachment to distant hosts and likelihood of infection. Read more...

Carina Galicia has received the College of Letters & Science Staff Achievement Award for 2024-2025. Read more here. 

BioE alumnus Connor Tou (B.S. 2020) has been named a 2025 STAT Wunderkind by by STAT News - an award that honors early-career scientists whose creativity and perseverance are helping to reshape biomedical research and health care.

Professor Dan Fletcher has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine for his contributions to the mechanistic understanding of biological self-assembly and mechanotransduction, and his work developing mobile phone-based microscopy for remote diagnosis of infectious diseases. Election to the academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine.

Research by IB's Adjunct Assistant Professor Juan Liu on a newly discovered fossil fish is being used to reshape the origin story of freshwater fish evolution. Read more in the Berkeley News article here. 

To combat the disparaging numbers of marginalized students opting out of pursuing STEM careers, a study was conducted by several IB researchers, including Jennifer Imamura, Tamara Mau, Joshua Povich, Timothy Herrlinger, Julianne M. Winters, and other collaborators. The research aims to address the growing concerns of equity and inclusion in academic and professional fields by creating and implementing the Faculty Optimizes Student Success (FLOSS) program, which relies on the feedback and cooperation of faculty members to foster an inclusive learning environment where students can become better equipped for their professional goals. Read the full article here.

Genomic research on the Turkana of northwestern Kenya, led by IB’s Julien Ayrole and Vanderbilt University’s Amanda Lea, in collaboration with Kenyan researchers and the Turkana community, reveals genetic adaptations developed for surviving the scorching and unforgiving desert conditions through an animal-based diet. The research concludes that the existence of these genetic adaptations may predispose individuals from the Turkana community to chronic diseases as the community transitions from pastoralist lifestyles to urban cities. Read the full Berkeley News article here.

The Berkeley Bioengineering undergraduate program remains in the top 10 programs nationally, ranking 8th in the latest rankings released by US News & World Report.

The first-ever measurements of ethanol content in fruits available to wild chimpanzees, conducted by Robert Dudley and IB graduate student Aleksey Maro, suggest that these animals may routinely ingest the equivalent of over two standard alcoholic drinks daily. Read the full Berkeley News article here. 

Research out of the lab of assistant professor Victor Ortega-Jiménez and collaborators show how wing-like fans on the feet of ripple bugs inspire a novel propulsion system for miniature robots. Read the full Berkeley News article.  

Assistant Professor Cara Brook is one of 22 researchers to be named 2025 Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences. Read more here.