Media Watch

Syntr Health Technologies Inc., an Irvine micro fat processing startup based at University Lab Partners, at the UCI Research Park, is raising $10 million to hire a sales team and focus on marketing this year, in preparation for expanding in 2024. The company’s fat processing machine, the SyntrFuge System, yields injectables taken from patients’ own fat tissue that can be applied to various cosmetic procedures, from facial wrinkle reduction to breast cancer reconstructive surgery. … CEO Ahmed Zobi received his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering, specializing in micro and nantechnology from University of California, Irvine. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More

A recent study from UC Irvine found that nearly 1 million people in L.A. live in areas that would be significantly affected by a 100-year flood. “The Los Angeles River, the San Gabriel River, Compton Creek, Dominguez channel — some of these channels are no longer able to contain what we would call a 100-year flood,” said Brett Sanders, lead author of the study and a civil and environmental engineering professor at UC Irvine. Read More

This is an extremely important development as scientists have now found a new way to improve water quality, and not just in the United States. What is this new technology? … In other words, through the machine’s built-in optical sensors, scientists are able to monitor E.coli’s biochemical responses to exposure to different metals, such as chromium and arsenic, and discover if the samples of water are contaminated at a much earlier rate. Through this quick and thorough piece of new detection technology (it only takes 10 minutes!), contaminated tap and wastewater samples can be identified much more quickly. … Co-author of a new study on this technology, which appears in Proceedings in the National Academy of Science, is a UCI professor of materials science and engineering, Regina Ragan. Read More

Michelle Khine, a research scientist, entrepreneur, mentor, and professor of biomedical engineering at the Samueli School of Engineering at the University of California, Irvine, still gets to play with her favorite childhood toy. More than 10 years ago, as a founding professor at the University of California, Merced, Khine came up with an elegant, effective and inexpensive solution to creating microfluidic chips using Shrinky Dinks®, a thin plastic that can be cut into any shape and baked into a smaller, thicker size. Today, the popular children's activity material remains an integral element of her fundamental and applied research. "We develop our own technology," says Khine …. Read More