10-04-10
Yu-Chong Tai, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, is a recipient of a 2010 Breakthrough Award by Popular Mechanics for his work on an artificial retina. [Popular Mechanics Article]
Tags: EE honors research highlights health Yu-Chong Tai MCE Popular Mechanics
09-10-10
Niles A. Pierce, Associate Professor of Applied & Computational Mathematics and Bioengineering, and colleagues have engineered a fundamentally new approach to killing cancer cells. The process uses small RNA molecules that can be programmed to attack only specific cancer cells; then, by changing shape, those molecules cause the cancer cells to self-destruct. [Caltech Press Release]
04-22-10
Alessandro Spadoni, Postdoctoral Scholar, and Chiara Daraio, Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Applied Physics, have built a nonlinear acoustic lens that produces highly focused, high-amplitude acoustic signals dubbed "sound bullets." The combination of the acoustic lens and sound bullets have "the potential to revolutionize applications from medical imaging and therapy to the nondestructive evaluation of materials and engineering systems," says Professor Daraio. [Caltech Press Release]
Tags: APhMS research highlights Chiara Daraio GALCIT health Alessandro Spadoni postdocs
12-17-09
A Joint Center for Translational Medicine is established with the aim of advancing experimental research in clinical applications, including the diagnosis and therapy of diseases such as cancer. [Caltech Press Release]
Tags: health
09-15-09
Antonio Rangel, Associate Professor of Economics, and colleagues show how brain imaging can be used to create new and improved solutions to the public-goods provision problem. [Caltech Press Release]
Tags: EE health Antonio Rangel
09-04-09
Mani Chandy, Simon Ramo Professor and Professor of Computer Science, has a new blog discussing sense and respond systems. Sense and respond systems are employed in diverse applications such as helping disabled people live independently in their own homes, interdicting radiological weapons, and managing a stock portfolio. [View Blog]
08-18-09
Dr. Paul Rothemund, Senior Research Associate in Bioengineering, Computer Science, and Computation and Neural Systems, and colleagues have developed a new technique to orient and position self-assembled DNA shapes and patterns--or "DNA origami"--on surfaces that are compatible with today's semiconductor manufacturing equipment. They "have removed a key barrier to the improvement and advancement of computer chips. They accomplished this through the revolutionary approach of combining the building blocks for life with the building blocks for computing," said Professor Ares Rosakis, Chair of Division of Engineering and Applied Science and Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering. [Caltech Press Release]
08-12-09
Dr. Michael Hucka, Senior Research Fellow in Control and Dynamical Systems and Co-Director of the Biological Network Modeling Center, and colleagues in 30 laboratories worldwide have released a new set of standards for graphically representing biological information—the biology equivalent of the circuit diagram in electronics. This visual language should make it easier to exchange complex information, so that biological models are depicted more accurately, consistently, and in a more readily understandable way. The new standard, is called the Systems Biology Graphical Notation (SBGN). "As biology focuses more on managing complexity with quantitative and systematic methods, standards such as SBGN play an essential role. SBGN combines an intuitive notation with the rigorous style of engineering and math," says John Doyle, the John G. Braun Professor of Control and Dynamical Systems, Bioengineering, and Electrical Engineering. [Caltech Press Release]
Tags: health CMS Michael Hucka
08-06-09
Paul Wennberg, the R. Stanton Avery Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Environmental Science and Engineering and director of the Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Global Environmental Science, and John Seinfeld, the Louis E. Nohl Professor and professor of chemical engineering, have shown that biogenic emissions—organic carbon compounds given off by plants and trees— affect air quality. Wennberg states that, "if you mix emissions from the city with emissions from plants, they interact to alter the chemistry of the atmosphere." Seinfeld adds, "particles in the atmosphere have been shown to impact human health, as they are small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs of people. Also, aerosols impact Earth's climate through the scattering and absorption of solar radiation and through serving as the nuclei on which clouds form. So it is important to know where particles come from." [Caltech Press Release]
Tags: research highlights health ESE Paul Wennberg John Seinfeld
07-20-09
Michael Elowitz, Associate Professor of Biology and Applied Physics; Bren Scholar, and Avigdor Eldar, Postdoctoral Scholar, show how evolution can allow for large developmental leaps. Most volutionary changes happen in tiny increments: an elephant grows a little larger, a giraffe's neck a little longer. Elowitz and Eldar's team have shown that such changes may at least sometimes be the result of noise, working alongside partial penetrance. Eldar, states "if you take a bunch of cells and grow them in exactly the same environment, they'll be identical twin brothers in terms of the genes they have, but they may still show substantial differences in their behavior." Elowitz adds that "noise—these random fluctuations of proteins in the cell—is not just a nuisance in this system; it's a key part of the process that allows genetically identical cells to do very different things." [Caltech Press Release]
