Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Bioengineering Grad Students Win Entrepreneur Challenge



Congratulations to the bioengineering grad students from the Jacobs School who took first place last night at the UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge. The winning students are from a team that bears the same name as their startup company: Biological Dynamics. Raj Krishnan is one of the founders, a bioengineering grad student and no stranger to the winners circle.

I recently wrote a story highlighting the many university research awards he was won this year. Read that story here.

Second Place went to Tritonics, a team that includes UC San Diego bioengineering grad student Saleh Amirriazi.

Third Place went to Radio Fast, which includes Mehmet Parlak, an ECE/Calit2 grad student.

Xconomy San Diego covered this story The first two graphs from that story by Juha-Pekka Tikka are excerpted below...followed by photos taken by Jacobs School alumna Nikki Truitt (Thanks Nikki!)

A biotechnology company aiming to revolutionize early-stage cancer screening last night won the UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge. Biological Dynamics, led by bioengineering PhD student and CEO Raj Krishnan and his fellow graduate students David Charlot and Roy Lefkowitz, took home the $40,000 first prize.

Biological Dynamics has developed a screening tool that identifies secondary cancer biomarkers such as free circulating DNA from unnatural cell death. Krishnan’s technology helps to detect signs of early stage tumors with a cost-effective blood test that takes less than 30 minutes and shows signs of almost every cancer type, according to the already much-awarded team.





Fluid Dynamics Research to Make Peeing in Space More Comfortable and Sanitary


Engineering undergrads at UC San Diego are studying the fluid dynamics of water in order to build a more comfortable and sanitary urine collection device for space travel.

The mechanical and aerospace engineering undergraduates from the Jacobs School of Engineering mimicked the behavior of streams of human urine in zero gravity in order to collect the data necessary to make better space urinals for both women and men.

Watch the 3 minute video below and read the full story here. (Embed code for the video is available here or from the tool bar under the video).