Media Watch Archives
UCI Beckman Laser Clinic Gets New Director
Orange County Business Journal -
The University of California, Irvine Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic has tapped Thomas Milner, a three-time entrepreneur and serial technology inventor with 55 issued patents, to oversee and expand its research activities. … Milner … said one major piece of his plan is working with the UCI Beall Applied Innovation center to convert research into viable commercial ventures that provide value to the community. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More
Carbon Nanostructure is Stronger Than Diamonds
Tech Briefs -
UCI researchers have architecturally designed plate-nanolattices — nanometer-sized carbon structures — that are stronger than diamonds as a ratio of strength to density. The material consists of closely connected, closed-cell plates instead of the cylindrical trusses common in such structures over the past few decades. … The material is fabricated through a 3D laser printing process called two-photon lithography direct laser writing. Read More
The Great Ventilator Rush
IEEE Spectrum -
“A consortium of physicians, scientists, and engineers led by the University of California, Irvine, and the University of Texas at Austin directed us [to] go and make the simplest possible ventilator,” says Virgin Orbit vice president for special projects Will Pomerantz. “We essentially took all the people who were going to be building next year’s rockets and said, ‘Next year’s rockets can probably wait a little bit—you’re going to be building or testing ventilators.’ ” Read More
How extracellular vesicles can enhance drug delivery
Scientific American -
However, there’s no guarantee that an engineered cell will load the desired cargo into its vesicles. “The cells decide what to encapsulate,” says Young Kwon, a biomedical and materials scientist at the University of California, Irvine. Nguyen’s team is studying how cells make those decisions, to find ways to ramp up exosome loading with artificial cargo. Researchers have identified strands of code common in natural exosomal RNAs that probably play a part in packaging the molecules. And Nguyen has found that copying some of these molecular codes onto other RNAs increases their loading into exosomes by up to 100-fold. Read More
UCI Leads $10 Million Personal Data Privacy Center
Orange County Business Journal -
The University of California-Irvine will lead a $10 million research center aimed at protecting personal data privacy. … “It is an honor and responsibility to lead one of NSF's signature projects to address the timely and important problem of personal data protection on the internet,” said principal investigator Athina Markopoulou, professor and chairperson of the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at UCI. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More
Opinion: Making public transport safe during COVID-19
The Hindu -
R. Jayakrishnan , UCI engineering professor and others write, “The metro rail agencies’ focus may need to shift to the egressing passengers, as it is important to prevent them from transferring what is on their hands to their faces after egress. We should expect a lot of passengers to leave in a hurry and to not bother with cleaning their hands, even if hand sanitiser dispensers are available.” Read More
Campus Police Are Under Scrutiny for Racial Profiling. It Isn’t the First Time
Diverse Issues in Higher Education -
In February, an officer at the University of California Irvine (UCI) arrested Shikera Chamndany, a Black alumna, for entering a campus building on lockdown and allegedly assaulting a police officer. Unaffiliated with the student protest that led officers to close the building, she was there to pick up her transcripts. … But universities, including UCI, are using this national moment to reform campus policing. A university statement on June 9 announced new steps “to further align the UCI Police Department with our commitment to inclusive excellence and confronting anti-Black racism,” signed by Dr. Douglas Haynes, chief diversity officer and vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion, UCI chief of police Elizabeth Griffin and Ronald S. Cortez, CFO and vice chancellor of the division of finance and administration. Read More
UCI Surgeon, Diehard Ducks Fan Making a Difference During Pandemic
Anaheim Ducks -
"It was a weird thing to leave in the first week of March when everything was fine, and then come home to find out everything was closed," says Dr. Nelson, Medical Director of UCI Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic and professor of surgery and biomedical engineering. "That was a shock." Dr. Nelson is engaged in full-time clinical practice at UCI Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic on the campus on UC Irvine, serving patients with pediatric port wine stain birthmarks, hemangiomas and other vascular malformations and skin disorders. But like many businesses in the state, his clinic was temporarily closed. Read More
Invisibility is (almost) possible when human cells are merged with squid genes
SYFY Wire -
Humans have not been able to make themselves seem invisible yet, but our species just got closer — at least in a petri dish. Scientists at UC Irvine have succeeded at genetically engineering human cells to express the light-scattering properties that camouflage squid (like the giant squid above), cuttlefish and octopi so well that predators mistake them for rocks or seaweed. When proteins called reflectins were taken from a squid and introduced to embryonic human kidney cells, the cells were able to blend into their backgrounds in the same surreal way a squid can. Read More
Scientists Mixed Squid DNA With Human Cells to Control Their Transparency in 'Revolutionary' Study
Newsweek -
Scientists have changed the degree of transparency of human cells in a laboratory, according to a study. It is hoped the technique, inspired by see-through sea creatures, will help us gain a deeper understanding of our biological processes. … To conduct the study, Alon Gorodetsky of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues genetically engineered human cells—which are relatively transparent—to express reflectin. Read More