Epidermal Electronics / Bioengineering Research in the journal Science

Bioengineering professor Todd Coleman, a new faculty member at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, is an author on a research article in the journal Science entitled "Epidermal Electronics".

A quote from the Jacobs School of Engineering epidermal electronics story is below.

“The brain-machine interface paradigm is very exciting and I think it need not be limited to thinking about prosthetics or people with some type of motor deficit,” said Coleman. “I think taking the lens of the human and computer interacting, and if you could evolve a very nice coupling that is remarkably natural and almost ubiquitous, I think there are applications that we haven’t even imagined. That is what really fascinates me – really the coupling between the biological system and the computer system.”

Coleman co-led the multidisciplinary team that developed the device while working as a professor of electrical and computer engineering and neuroscience at the University of Illinois last year. The device is made of a thin sheet of plastic covered with a water-soluble layer that sticks to skin after washing with water. Once applied, the plastic dissolves, leaving the electronic components imprinted into the skin like a temporary tattoo.

UC San Diego Electrical Engineers Solve a Major Problem Holding Back Photonic Chips

Just as traffic signals keep people from driving (and crashing) their cars on the wrong side of the road, a new waveguide device developed by a Caltech-UC San Diego research team creates a way to keep light signals on a silicon chip from reflecting backwards and interfering with its operation.

The breakthrough, published Aug. 5 in the journal Science, clears a major obstacle in photonic chip development. Photonic chips could replace electronic chips as the backbone of information technology and usher in a new era of information sharing that will be faster, more energy-efficient and a lot less expensive than today’s networked computing. How fast? UC San Diego alumnus Liang Feng, lead author on the paper, told the North County Times today that photonic chips will enable Google searches in the blink of an eye instead of the several seconds it requires now.

Thanks to a unique capacity for combining near-field imaging and heterodyne interferometry in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego, grad student Maurice Ayache was able to measure how the light traveled through the waveguide device, proving the system keeps light beams moving in the right direction. The top image shows that the light moves symmetrically going in one direction, while the bottom image shows how the light moves differently – avoiding interference -- when it reflects backwards.

UC San Diego's Micromouse Competition in the Spotlight

The Institute, a newspaper mailed quarterly to all IEEE members, profiled UC San Diego's micromouse competition in its most recent issue. The publication singled out IEEE's UC San Diego chapter for organizing the first-ever California Micromouse Competition in May. The goal was to boost attendance--and excitement. The competition attracted 13 teams from 8 schools, including UCLA, the University of Southern California and UC Santa Barbara. Fittingly, UCSD teams took first and second place. UCLA came in third.

Read the full story here. Then check out our news release about the competition here.

Charles Tu Grows the Materials that Build Technology

The North American Molecular Beam Epitaxy (NAMBE) Advisory Board and Veeco, Inc. will honor electrical and computer engineering professor Charles Tu with its MBE Innovator Award on Aug. 16 for significantly advancing the field of Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE). MBE is a versatile research tool for growing single-crystalline films atomic-layer by atomic-layer in order to build devices like high-performance transistors, lasers and solar cells. Tu is also associate dean of the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering. The award will be presented at UCSD during the annual NAMBE conference banquet.

MBE systems traditionally relied upon ultra-pure solid elements, such as gallium and arsenic, which could only be used to grow arsenides, leaving out other compounds that are important in fiber-optic communications.

When Tu came to UCSD in 1988, he set up one of the first gas-source MBE systems in the United States, enabling his research team to grow a wider variety of materials -- including arsenides, phosphides, nitrides, and mixtures of them – than was previously possible. Currently, Tu is growing dilute nitrides – a new class of materials pioneered in his shop over the past 12 years – for intermediate-band solar cells and nanowire solar cells.

The MBE Innovator Award recognizes individuals whose innovative work has significantly advanced the field of MBE in materials research, device development or commercialization, or equipment development.

UC San Diego Bioengineering Startup Genomatica Tops New Biofuels Ranking

Renewable chemicals developer Genomatica recently took the #1 spot in the 2011-12 “30 Hottest Companies in Renewable Chemicals and Materials” rankings by BiofuelsDigest. The rankings recognize innovation and achievement in renewable chemicals and materials development. (Read the Genomatica press release on this ranking.)

Genomatica CEO Christophe Schilling earned his Ph.D. in Bioengineering in 2000 at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, under the guidance of professor Bernhard Palsson, the Galetti Professor of Bioengineering in the Department of Bioengineering.

Schilling launched ­Genomatica along with Palsson in 2000. Their aim was to enable the chemical industry, through Genomatica’s novel bio-manufacturing processes, to transform its feedstock base and take the “petro” out of the “petro-chemicals” business. Currently, professor Palsson serves at the chairman of the Genomatica scientific advisory board.

* Genomatica is a 2011 winner of the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (read Genomatica press release), was recently named one of ‘10 Big Green Ideas’ by Newsweek and has been featured on Forbes.com.

* Find links to Genomatica-related stories on this April 5 post on the Jacobs School of Engineering blog.

* The UC San Diego alumni magazine ran an item on Genomatica in September 2009.

* The full ranking list is below:

The 30 Hottest Companies in Renewable Chemicals and Biomaterials for 2011-12 are:

1.     Genomatica
2.     Solazyme
3.     Amyris
4.     Gevo
5.     LS9
6.     Dupont
7.     Codexis
8.     Genencor
9.     Novozymes
10.   ZeaChem

11.     Cargill
12.    Cobalt Technologies
13.     Waste Management
14.     Ceres
15.     Elevance Renewable Sciences
16.     Dow Chemical
17.     Enerkem
18.     Coskata
19.     OPX Biotechnologies

20.     DSM
21.     Myriant
22.     Cosan
23.     Mascoma
24.     KiOR
25.     DuPont Danisco
26.     Virent
27.     LanzaTech
28.     POET
29.     Metabolix
30.     Honeywell’s UOP

Medical Device Engineering / Wireless Embedded Systems MAS Programs Mentioned in San Diego Union Tribune

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The San Diego Union Tribune ran a short story on the new Medical Device Engineering, and Wireless Embedded Systems programs being launched this fall here at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. These programs are the newest Master of Advanced Study programs from the Jacobs School. They join the AESE or Architecture-based Enterprise Systems Engineering, also a Jacobs School MAS program.

Medical Device Engineering / Master's Program Starts Fall 2011

A new Medical Device Engineering graduate program for working professionals begins this fall at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

“The new master degree program will address an unmet need in San Diego – interdisciplinary graduate-level training for engineers and scientists who are already working in the medical device and diagnostic industries. The curriculum is focused on the interface between traditional disciplines, which is where the most exciting advances in medical device and diagnostic systems engineering are occurring,” said Juan C. Lasheras, a UC San Diego professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE), and in the Department of Bioengineering – which the National Research Council (NRC) ranked as first in the country in 2010. Lasheras is also Director of the Center for Medical Devices and Instrumentation – part of the UC San Diego Institute of Engineering in Medicine. "

Keep reading. Check out a new article on the San Diego Medical Device Engineering program on the Jacobs School of Engineering website. "New UC San Diego Master Degree Program Aims to Keep the Medical Device and Medical Diagnosis Workforce Competitive"