Director's Message

We had a wonderful event at the Powell-Focht Bioengineering Hall Dedication ceremony. I t was a great success. We appreciate the participation of the leaders from the Whitaker Foundation, the Powell Foundation, the von Liebig Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the University. The ceremony provided an opportunity for many friends and colleagues to review our collaborative accomplishments and discuss our future challenges. The Department is planning to move into the new building in November/December of this year.

I would like to thank Professor Gough for the excellent work he did as Chair of the Department of Bioengineering. After completion of his three-year term he will devote more time to his research. I have been appointed as Chair of Bioengineering and I am very fortunate that Professors Andrew McCulloch and Robert Sah have agreed to serve as Vice Chairs.

It is my pleasure to present our new Industrial Affiliate Program member Nanogen Inc. Dr. Michael Heller, who was a co-founder of the company, is now a member of the Bioengineering faculty.

This newsletter is featuring Dr. Jeff Hasty as a new faculty member in the Department of Bioengineering. Dr. Hasty has brought to the Department expertise in the area of computational genomics and the dynamics of gene regulatory networks. I am also pleased to announce that Dr. Xiaohua Huang has also joined our Department from MIT and that Dr. Wayne Giles will join us in April 2003 from the University of Calgary.

The Industrial Advisory Board of the Whitaker Institute Industrial Affiliate program has elected Dr. William S. Craig of ISTA Pharmaceutical as the new Chair. He succeeded Dr. John Penhune of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), who had provided outstanding leadership during his tenure as Chair of the Board.

We sincerely congratulate our faculty, research staff, and students for their awards and honors received during the past few months. Also, we congratulate our new graduates for completing their education at UCSD Bioengineering.

I wish to thank Tatyana Matusov for her excellent work in editing this Newsletter.

Dr. Shu Chien, Director

WIBE Industrial Affiliate: Nanogen Inc.

Back to beginning.

Nanogen was created in 1993 by Dr. Michael Heller and Howard Birndorf. The concept was little more than an idea written on a piece of paper, when Mr. Birndorf recognized that the marriage of microelectronics and molecular biology was the making of a company. The basis of Nanogen's technology is that DNA is negatively charged in solution, and a positively charged cathode in an electric field should be able to attract, concentrate, and transport negatively charged DNA to a specific location on a microarray.

Even from the earliest stage, the concept was that at some point in the future there will be a genetic laboratory on a chip that can be in different types of clinical testing laboratories including a physician's office.

In the coming years, Nanogen will have perfected the technology to the point that doctors will place a drop of blood into a system to run a patient's particular profile. The profile will enable the doctor to determine what drug is right for the patient, based upon a genetic mutational analysis.

This was the long vision for Nanogen, back in 1993. The short vision was that molecular diagnostic testing was the wave of the future, and therefore Nanogen needed to build a macro version of a molecular diagnostic system. That system would ultimately be miniaturized over time to lead to fulfillment of that individualized medicine platform.

Today, this vision is being realized and indeed Nanogen does have a molecular biology workstation that analyzes genetic markers and does mutational analysis. The NanoChip® Molecular Biology Workstation, their first commercial product, is an automated, multi-purpose instrument primarily used for DNA-based analyses. Researchers in the field of molecular biology and genetics use the platform to study how genes function and to understand the correlation between genetic variation and disease. Moreover, clinical laboratory customers are beginning to use the system for testing patient specimens. The NanoChip® System can also be used for human identification, important in the forensics field. It facilitates in the detection of known sequences, such as in the analysis of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) and Short Tandem Repeats (STRs) using the NanoChip® Electronic Microarray. The unique, open-architecture design permits researchers to define, select and build their own test panels or select from predefined, Nanogen validated applications and Analyte Specific Reagents (ASRs).

Patent-by-patent and deal-by-deal Nanogen has become a significant force in molecular diagnostics. With an open-architecture platform, 44 U.S. patents, and 25 foreign patents, the company has a foothold that may be unmatched by companies entering the molecular diagnostics market too late.

To date, Nanogen has developed two ASRs - Factor V (Leiden) and Cystic Fibrosis. They have also internally validated five research protocols, four associated with cardiovascular disease and one associated with hereditary hemochromatosis, the most common form of iron overload disease. More protocols and ASRs will be forthcoming in the near future including those for Hereditary Hemochromatosis, Apolipoprotein E and multiplexed Factor V/Factor II. Nanogen's open system allows customers to easily run more common assays as well as customize their own assays, all on the same system. As such, many assays have already been designed by customers or by Nanogen for use on the NanoChip® System.

Nanogen's mission is to become a leading supplier of molecular diagnostic tests to the medical community and to clinical researchers. The Company is seeking to establish the NanoChip® System as the standard platform for the detection of genetic mutations and to develop applications for future clinical use. Nanogen markets its NanoChip® Molecular Biology Workstation to scientists and genomics laboratories. The NanoChip® System is intended for laboratory use only. For additional information please visit Nanogen's web site at www.nanogen.com.

Powell-Focht Bioengineering Hall Dedication

Back to beginning.

UCSD Bioengineering held an exciting event that took place on Monday, August 12, 2002, i.e., the Dedication Ceremony for the new Powell-Focht Bioengineering Hall, which is named in honor of the Charles Lee Powell Foundation and the late San Diego Superior Court Judge James L. Focht. This building started with the Department receiving a $18 million Leadership Award from the Whitaker Foundation and a $8 million gift from the Powell Foundation in 1998. Together with gifts from the von Liebig Foundation and many other donors, this $37-million, 109,000-sq.ft. building will be the first at UCSD that has been constructed primarily by private sources of funding.

This building will house the Department of Bioengineering and the Whitaker Institute of Biomedical Engineering. There are teaching laboratories, core facilities, the Y.C. Fung Auditorium, the Zweifach Library, conference rooms, von Liebig Center for Entrepreunism and Technology Development, and facilities for students, as well as research laboratories and offices. Each of the four floors of the building will be dedicated to one of the Department's major technical focus areas: genomic bioengineering/bioinformatics, molecular biomechanics, cellular and tissue engineering, and systems bioengineering. Five core technology laboratories (nanotechnology, information technology, imaging and microscopy, biofabrication, and in vivo technology) will be available to faculty, students and visiting scientists. The building will also include instructional design laboratories which provide students with direct hands-on education experience.

As headquarters for the von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement, the building will include conference rooms and work rooms for Jacobs School faculty and students actively involved in commercialization projects. The von Liebig Center provides advisory services and funds to accelerate the commercialization of UCSD inventions and develops courses focused on entrepreneurism for engineering students.

The Dedication Ceremony took place on Warren Mall in front of the main entrance of the new Powell-Focht Building, starting at 3:30 pm on August 12. President Richard Atkinson of the University of California attended the celebration, together with representatives from the Whitaker Foundation, the Powell Foundation, the von Liebig Foundation, the NIH, UCSD, and bioengineering programs elsewhere in the country.

Before the ceremony, Roderic Ivan Pettigrew, Director-designate of the newly established National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the NIH, delivered a Dedication Address on "Challenges for Emerging Technologies in Medicine and Biomedical Engineering". After the ceremony, the reception and tour of the building took place. Speakers at the dedication ceremony included Frieder Seible, Interim Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering; Richard C. Atkinson, President of the University of California; Edward W. Holmes, UCSD Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences and Dean of the School of Medicine; Donna J. Dean, Acting Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering; G. Burtt Holmes, Chairman of Governing Board, The Whitaker Foundation; Joel Holliday, President of the Charles Lee Powell Foundation; Jean Goggins, Executive Director of the William J. von Liebig Foundation; and Shu Chien, Chair of the Department of Bioengineering and Director of the Whitaker Institute of Biomedical Engineering.

UCSD Bioengineering alumni, faculty and students gathered in the Fung Auditorium for a reception following the dedication. UCSD's first bioengineering Ph.D. graduate Frank Yin, '73, now chair of biomedical engineering at Washington University, was a featured speaker. UCSD Bioengineering alumnus Erik Engelson, Class of '82, '84 and CFO, Fluidigm Corporation, challenged fellow bioengineering alumni to join him in outfitting the student lounge. The target is to collect $250 thousand. Erik Engelson offered 1/3 of the targeted amount. The student lounge will serve the purposes of creating a space for the Bioengineering graduate students' informal activities, gatherings, TAs' preparation for classes, etc.

The dedication ceremony was a chance to celebrate the achievements of UCSD Bioengineering and to discuss plans for the future. For more information about the ceremony and the new building, please go to http://www-bioeng.ucsd.edu/powell_focht/.

UCSD Study of Girls' Attitudes About Achievement

Female engineering students who believe competence in engineering and math is something a person is born with tend to drop out of classes when faced with difficulty, according to a study conducted at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). The aim of the study, which included surveys of 238 college students, was to help understand why women are more likely to leave engineering majors than are men. The study is published in The Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering (Vol. 8, No. 1) and was co-authored by Psychology Professor Gail D. Heyman, Bioengineering Professor Sangeeta Bhatia, and human development major Bryn Martyna.

"Many women who enter engineering majors have been told all their lives how good they are at math and science, so they tend to believe their aptitude is something they are born with. When they encounter difficulty, it can be devastating because their very identity is brought into question," says Bhatia, who serves as the faculty advisor to the Society of Women Engineers student chapter at the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering. "Because many believe their aptitude is a fixed ability, not a learned one, they tend to drop classes when faced with difficulty. It's as if they are saying to themselves - oh, I guess I'm not good at engineering and math after all."

Bhatia says that when males have trouble in their college classes, they more often consider it as a challenge that can be overcome by studying harder or taking a different approach to the problem.

The study further found that there is a gender tension between male and female engineering students. Female students feel as if they are held to higher scrutiny and have to prove they belong in engineering, while male students believe females receive more breaks.

"Women feel that they have to perform even better than their male peers in order to fit in," says Heyman. "When they face a difficult situation, many women fear that people will question whether they belong in engineering, and they may even start believing the stereotypes themselves."

The researchers conclude that providing female students with positive role models at critical junctures in their college career may help retain women in engineering. The researchers also believe it is important for women to have opportunities to talk to other women engineering students about their experiences.

At UCSD, Bhatia sparked the idea, and supported the Society of Women Engineers student chapter to start a spring banquet for sophomores during which successful female engineers describe their careers and how they were able to overcome obstacles. At this spring's banquet, Sally Ride, the first female astronaut, spoke at the banquet. Heyman is also conducting a follow-up survey to determine how attitudes about intelligence impact decisions that girls make in high school, and she is planning an additional survey with college-level students..

Background

According to a National Science Foundation report*, only 9 percent of engineering jobs are held by women. Women are less likely than men to select engineering as an undergraduate major, and among engineering majors, women are less likely than men to complete a degree program. To conduct the study, Bryn Martyna surveyed 38 female engineering students, 104 male engineering students, and 57 females and 39 males from non-engineering majors. She asked a number of questions that examined the students' beliefs about 1) the nature of abilities and meaning of difficulties that are encountered; 2) beliefs about whether male and female engineering students are treated differently, and 3) students' values and interests.

Media Contact: Denine Hagen
Jacobs School of Engineering

Projects Funded Through
von Liebig Center Grubstakes Program

Grubstakes Program at the JSOE's von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement has funded first six projects that have the strong commercial potential for the technology. Two of the six projects were proposed by Bioengineering researchers, Drs. Schmid- Schönbein and McCulloch, and one by the Whitaker Institute member, Dr. Alan M. Schneider.

Professor Geert Schmid-Schönbein received funding for his project titled "Development of Filter System for Humoral Cell Activators in Severe Cardiovascular Diseases". Patients with major cardiovascular disease and conditions associated with high mortality, such as traumatic shock, have enhanced levels of inflammatory mediators in their plasma. These mediators cause the cells in the circulation to become activated and produce cell and organ failure. We recently discovered a major source for these inflammatory mediators, a source that was shown to be due to the action of pancreatic digestive enzymes. There is a need to develop a new approach to remove the inflammatory mediators from plasma and thereby reduce the level of the inflammatory reaction. The goal of our project is to develop a new technology to eliminate the humoral inflammatory mediators from the circulation of patients.

Professor Andrew McCulloch's project "In-Silico Modeling for Bioengineering and Medicine" was also awarded funding. The goal of this project is to transition their research software package Continuity to commercial applications in biomedical devices, diagnostic imaging and drug discovery. Continuity is an integrative bioengineering modeling package developed by the cardiac mechanics research group primarily for research applications in cardiac biomechanics and electrophysiology. However its generality makes it useful for a wide range of potential commercial applications outside the research and education arena. The software engineering sponsored by the Von Liebig Center will accelerate the commercialization of Continuity.

Professor Emeritus of Engineering Sciences Alan M. Schneider's project "Torque Pulsation Compensation Schemes for DC Motors and Their Application in a Robotic Arm for Stroke Patient Rehabilitation" was also funded. The goals of Dr. Schneider's project are the following:

• Develop software and hardware that can be applied to commercial electric motors to mitigate the adverse effects of torque pulsation disturbances that are deleterious in many applications that involve high precision positioning.
• Develop biomechanical methods to quantitatively measure and characterize spastic limb function. They chose a human elbow as a representative joint because of its relative simplicity and accessibility. Using a system-and-control engineering approach, the researchers are constructing theory, methods, and prototype hardware for measuring physiological biomechanical criteria to characterize elbow spasticity. This research is applicable to the care, management, and rehabilitation of limb spasticity, as well as to clinical studies on the physiological nature of spasticity.
• Investigate innovative ways to apply the system, techniques, and data to clinical use, clinical research, and patient rehabilitation.

Professor Chien Receives
the Poiseuille Gold Medal

University Professor Shu Chien was awarded the 13th Poiseuille Gold Medal by the International Society of Biorheology (ISB) at the 11th International Congress of Biorheology and the 4th International Conference of Clinical Hemorheology held jointly September 22-26, 2002 in Antalya, Turkey. This third joint meeting of the International Societies of Biorheology and Clinical Hemorheology continued a tradition of cooperation established at Big Sky, USA in 1995 and sustained at Pecs, Hungary in 1999.

The Poiseuille Gold Medal, the highest award of ISB in honor of the great French physician-scientist Lean-Leonard-Marie Poiseuille, is awarded to prominent scientists whose research has enriched and advanced biorheology, which is the science that studies the flow and deformation in biological systems. The award was first presented by the International Society of Biorheology in 1966 and has been presented as its highest distinction at each of its subsequent congresses, held usually every 3 years. Nominations for the award were solicited last fall. The awardee was chosen by former recipients and the ISB officers and councilors. A highlight of the meeting was a special lecture and award ceremony to recognize the Poiseuille Gold Medallist. Professor Shu Chien delivered the Poiseuille award lecture entitled "Effects of Rheological Factors on Signaling Transduction and Gene Expression in Endothelial Cells". Professor Y.C. Fung (1986) and the late Professor Richard Skalak (1989) were earlier winners of this prestigious honor. Thus, UCSD Bioengineering faculty account for three of the 13 awardees of this international award, and in fact three of the last six.

In 1995 the Shanghai Biophysical Society established a Chien-Fung Award in honor of Drs. Shu Chien and Y.C. Fung, to be awarded to a Chinese young investigator with the best presentation at its meeting. The First Awardee was Dr. Hui Miao of the China-Japan Friendship Hospital; Dr. Miao is now working with Dr. Chien at UCSD. In 1999 the responsibility of administering this Award was transferred to ISB. Dr. Han Dong of the Physics Department of Tsinghua University in Beijing was chosen as the second recipient by the ISB International Advisory Committee on the basis of his contributions and promise as a biorheology researcher, and the award was presented at the Antalya Congress.

Announcements

The Fourth UC System-wide Bioengineering Symposium will be held On UCSD campus on June 22-23, 2003. Information about the symposium will soon be available.

We are pleased to report that the First Annual UCSD Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering Symposium was successfully held on Saturday, October 12, 2002 in the Garren Auditorium. This Symposium was co-sponsored by the Departments of Bioengineering and Radiology and the Whitaker Institute of Biomedical Engineering. The purpose was to foster interchange between the bioengineering and imaging investigators in these and other departments to enhance collaboative research and education on Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

William S. Craig, Ph.D., CEO of ISTA Pharmaceuticals has been elected Chair of the Industrial Advisory Board for the Whitaker Institute Industrial Affiliate Program. Dr. Craig has brought with him many years of expertise in the biotechnology research and management.

Professor David Gough completed his three-year term as Chair of the Department of Bioengineering and decided to devote more time to his outstanding research on glucose metabolism and monitoring in relation to diabetes mellitus. Professor Shu Chien has been appointed as Chair of Bioengineering as of July 1, 2002. Professor Andrew McCulloch and Professor Robert Sah have been appointed as Vice Chairs of the Department of Bioengineering. They will work closely with Chair Shu Chien on administrative matters in the Department and will take turns to serve as Acting Chair in his absence. Professor McCulloch will continue to serve as Chair of the Graduate Studies Committee, and Professor Sah will continue to serve as Chair of the Undergraduate Studies Committee.

ABET's Engineering Accreditation Commission extended full accreditation to our Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Structural Engineering programs in JSOE. In addition, it also approved initial accreditation of the Aerospace program and the new program in bioengineering-biotechnology.

UC Bioengineering ranks very high in citations from articles published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering. The paper of Amy Tsai of 1998 is the one receiving most citations, ranking No. 1. It is followed by a paper from Bernhard Palsson's group that ranks No. 3, and three papers by Y.C Fung and his colleagues that rank No. 4, 5 & 6. This is a notable achievement by our Department.

WIBE Profile: Jeff Hasty

Back to beginning.

Dr. Jeff Hasty joined Bioengineering faculty during the summer of 2002 and currently holds an appointment in the Department of Bioengineering. Dr. Hasty received his Ph.D. in Physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research is focused on computational genomics, specifically on the nonlinear dynamics and statistical physics of gene regulatory networks. Dr. Hasty's rich scientific and teaching experience includes such positions as research assistant professor and postdoctoral research associate at the Department of Biomedical Engineering of Boston University, postdoctoral research associate at the Supercomputer Computations Research Institute of Florida State University, lecturer, research and teaching assistant at the Department of Physics of Georgia Institute of Technology. He also worked as an adjunct professor at the Physical Science Department of Kennessaw State University.

Dr. Hasty's research is in the area of computational genomics and the dynamics of gene regulatory networks. This research is directed towards the dissection and analysis of the complex dynamical interactions involved in gene regulation. His approach is guided by the use of techniques from nonlinear dynamics, statistical physics, and molecular biology to model, design and construct synthetic gene networks. Broadly, this approach addresses the following goals:

Development of cellular control schemes. Simple gene networks represent a first step towards logical cellular control, whereby biological processes can be manipulated or monitored at the DNA level. Such control could have a significant impact on post-genomic biotechnology. From the construction of simple switches or oscillators, one can imagine the design of genetic code, or software, capable of performing increasingly elaborate functions.

Quantification through reductionism. Synthetic network construction strikes at the heart of the scientific notion of reduced complexity. The inherently reductionist approach of decoupling a simple network from its native and often complex biological setting can lead to valuable information necessary for the establishment of a framework for deducing the dynamics of gene regulation. Such a framework could lead to the modular dissection of naturally occurring gene regulatory networks, the deduction of cellular processes such as differentiation, and the development of engineered cellular control.

Dr. Hasty has authored two reviews on gene circuits and their utility (Hasty et al. 200 1, 2002). In his work describing an autocatalytic single-gene network, he developed a computational model (Hasty et al. 2000, 2001) and carried out experiments on such a network in Escherichia coli (Isaacs* et al. 2003). The design of an in vivo positive feedback network was inspired by computational results predicting bistability in a single-gene system constructed from the promoter controlling the lysogenic state of the bacteriophage ? (Hasty et al. 2000). Transcriptional activation and protein multimerization yield nonlinearities in the governing equations, and for sufficient activation and protein degradation these nonlinearities lead to a multistable regime in the steady-state protein concentration. These considerations lead to two critical design features for an engineered bistable single-gene network: (i) activation of sufficient strength as to induce a significant bistable regime, and (ii) the ability to probe for the bistable regime by tuning the degradation rate of the activator protein. As predicted by the model, it was found that temperature-induced protein destabilization led to the existence of two expression states, thus elucidating the trademark bistability of the positive feedback network architecture.

His work on the positive feedback network provided an excellentmodel system for systematically evaluating the effect of fluctuations (Hasty etal. 2000) on gene regulation. The computational model was used to predict the steady-state concentration of the activator protein as a function of the degradation parameter, and the data from the experiment was found to be remarkably consistent with the simulation results. In particular, the bistable regime appeared as overlapping distributions, indicating that relatively rapid transitions are occurring between the two states. This was predicted by the model: the temporal evolution of a single cell elicits transitions between states on time scales much less than the cell division time. These results underscored the importance of internal noise in gene regulation, and support the premise (Arkin et al. 1998) that differing developmental pathways, or cellular states, can be accessed by way of noise-induced transitions.

More recently, Dr. Hasty has developed a computational model describing the design of a genetic "relaxation oscillator" (Hasty et al. 2002). This oscillator is constructed from a positive feedback subnetwork analogous to the one described above. In addition to quantifying the design criteria for the synthetic oscillator, his work investigated the coupling of such a network to an oscillating cellular process. Such coupling could lead to possible strategies for entraining or inducing network oscillations in cellular protein levels, and prove useful in the design of networks which interact with cellular processes that require amplification or precise timing.

The Department will also benefit from Dr. Hasty's extensive teaching experience. Invited lectures on gene networks, talks at the conferences, community service as a research science mentor and science teacher at public schools, these are just some of the instances of Dr. Hasty as a mentor.

Dear Professor Hasty, welcome to UCSD Bioengineering!

Bioengineering Seminar Schedule

Spring Quarter 2002
Room 2111 Warren Lecture Hall
2:30 - 3:30 P.M. Fridays
BE 281 and The Whitaker Institute of Biomedical Engineering

WIBE Faculty Honors

Dr. Andrew McCulloch has been voted by the graduating seniors as the Best Teacher in the Bioengineering program.

Dr. Dirk-Uwe Bartsch , Associate Adjunct Professor of Ophthalmology has received the "Achievement Award" from the American Academy of Ophthalmology for many years of distinguished services in the programs of the Society.

Dr. Roland C. Blantz , Professor and Head of Nephrology/Hypertension in the Department of Medicine and the Physiology representative to the SOM Faculty of Basic Biomedical Sciences Council, is currently a) President of the American Society of Nephrology, representing all academic and clinical nephrologists in the USA. Their national meeting draws approximately 12,000 US and international nephrologists, basic scientists and clinical investigators. The ASN represents scientific and clinical interests at NIH and with Congress; and b) President of the Council of American Kidney Societies (CAKS), including the ASN, National Kidney Foundation, American Society of Transplantation, Am. Society of Pediatric Nephrologists, Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation and Renal Physicians Association.

Dr. Marcos Intaglietta Professor of Bioengineering, is the recipient of the International Award of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) for the year 2002. The BMES BME International Award is awarded each year by the Biomedical Engineering Society to an individual in a university, industry, or government to recognize his/her contributions to the advancement of biomedical engineering. The award is intended to honor the worldwide effort of promoting biomedical engineering as a profession with the aim to improve people's health. This award is made possible by a gift from the Lee family.

Dr. Bernhard O. Palsson was awarded the Food, Pharmaceutical & Bioengineering Award by the American Institute of Chemical Engineering for his visionary, scholarly, creative and entrepreneurial contributions to systems biology and to cellular and bioreactor technology. His efforts have led the chemical engineering profession to the forefront of understanding the systems biology encoded in emerging genomic databases. In addition, his insightful use of chemical engineering principles has resulted in dramatic improvements in the efficiency of technology critical to such applications as cell separation, cell culture, and gene therapy. Dr. Palsson was also a keynote speaker at the IEEE Computer Society Bioinformatics Conference in Palo Alto, CA on August 14-16, 2002.

Dr. Amy G. Tsai Associate Research Scientist, has won the 2002 Lafon Award for Outstanding Publications for the paper: Tsai, A.G. ìInfluence of cell-free Hb on local tissue perfusion and oxygenation in acute anemia after isovolemic hemodilutionî Transfusion 41(10):1290-1298, 2001. This career development award is given biannually ($5,000.- by the Laboratoire L. Lafon, Paris, France) and is intended for researchers in the first half of their career who have shown by relevant publications that they are able and willing to develop and support new concepts and perspectives for microcirculatory and vascular biology research in the experimental or clinical environment. This award was presented to Dr. Tsai at the 2002 European Microcirculatory Society Meeting in Exeter, U.K. on August 29th.

Visiting Scientists

Dr. Joakim Sundnes from the Simula Laboratory at the University of Oslo, Norway, is spending four months visiting the Cardiac Mechanics Research Group where he is collaborating on the development of efficient new algorithms for modeling the integrated electromechanical function of the beating heart. In June, Dr. Sundnes defended his thesis entitled "Numerical Methods for Simulating the Electrical Activity of the Heart" at a defense ("disputation") in Oslo attended by Dr. McCulloch and Bioengineering graduate student Mary Ellen Belik. The Simula lab is named after the innovative programming language of that name, which was developed at the University of Oslo, and is now recognized as the first object-oriented programming language.

Dr. Bor-Show Tzang from the Animal Technology Institute Taiwan at Miaoli, Taiwan, R.O.C., is spending six weeks visiting the Vascular Molecular Bioengineering Group and ArrayCore where he is collaborating on protein microarray. He has just received a grant from Council of Agriculture in Taiwan for establishing the technical platform of protein microarray. At this moment in Taiwan, establishment of protein microarry technology is the inevitable tendency in developing proteomic applications. Dr. Tzang expects to exchange the academic knowledge and experiences in protein microarray.

John N. Maina, Ph.D. has just arrived as a visiting professor for one year. He is Professor of Anatomy at the University of Witwatersrand Medical School, Johannesburg, South Africa, and is originally from Kenya. He is a world authority on the structure and function of the avian lung. Dr. Maina is working in the group of WIBE member, Dr. John West.

Student Honors

Kanika Chawla, Bioengineering graduate student, received a Whitaker Foundation Graduate Fellowship in Biomedical Engineering.

Won C. Bae, Bioengineering graduate student, was awarded $10,000 as the recipient of the Arthritis Foundation San Diego Chapter's Doctoral Dissertation Award 2002

Sarah Healy, Bioengineering Graduate Student, received a Top Achiever Doctoral scholarship from the New Zealand Foundation for Research, Science and Technology. The New Zealand Government recently established these scholarships in order to recognize and reward excellent PhD students in all disciplines. The objectives of the Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarships are to: a) signal the value of high-level intellectual skills and abilities and their importance to New Zealand's future; b) give doctoral scholars the choice of studying in New Zealand or at overseas universities; and c) increase the supply of highly trained researchers and highly skilled graduates by supporting the top doctoral candidates.

New Bioengineering Ph.D.'s and Their Thesis Titles

Michael Jablecki "Analysis of Key Parameters of Glucose Sensors"

Kelvin Li "Regulation of Chondrocytes by Static and Dynamic Loading in Articular Cartilage Repair"

Carlos Vera "Junctional Complex: Molecular Architecture and Contributions to Erythrocyte Membrane Biomechanics"

Amanda Williamson "Development and Growth of Bovine Articular Cartilage: Biomechanical Function and Function-Composition Relationships"

Congratulations to all!

University of California, San Diego
Whitaker Institute of Biomedical Engineering
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0427

(858) 822-2290