Trey Ideker Paper in Nature Methods this Week

Researchers Map Thousands of MAPK Protein Interactions

Investigators, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have mapped a huge network of protein interactions involving Mitogen Activated Protein Kinase (MAPK) pathways. Their study will be published in the advanced online edition of Nature Methods on September 19.

“MAP kinases play an important role in human disease and as drug targets, so a better understanding of their thousands of interactions will likely identify new targets,” said principal investigator Trey Ideker, PhD, chief of the Division of Genetics at UC San Diego. Ideker is also a professor in the Department of Bioengineering here at the Jacobs School.

Read the full story by Debra Kain here.

Glucose Sensor Story on KPBS today

News of a long-term wireless glucose monitoring system is flying through the air today -- literally. The KPBS airwaves are carrying the UC San Diego / GlySens story by Tom Fudge. Take a listen on the KPBS Web site.

Implanted Glucose Sensor Works For Over One Year

Above is the cover image illustrating work on an implantable sensor that provided long-term glucose monitoring in pigs. The next step: approval for clinical trials for humans. Read the glucose sensor Web story from the Jacobs School for details on how this kind of sensor could eventually help people with both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.

CREDIT: C. BICKEL/SCIENCE TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE

NextGen Nano Sensors

UC San Diego NanoEngineering professor Jen Cha is using a $300,000 grant from the U.S Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop nanoscale materials for biological and chemical sensing for health and environmental monitoring. Cha and her research team are hoping to find routes to fabricate arrays of nanoscale materials for medical diagnostics or for security sensing that does not require high engineering costs. For these types of applications to make a “real world” impact, the production of the devices needs to be kept at an absolute minimum, Cha explained.

“If we can get around the problem of repeatedly needing an expensive tool, such as those used for semiconductor chip manufacturing (i.e. lithography), and still be able to achieve sub-50 nanometer resolution, that would be pretty revolutionary for applications such as low-cost diagnostics and chemical sensors,” she said.

Enhancing Heart Surgery For Children

UC San Diego mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Alison Marsden is working through an international collaboration to develop multiscale models for all three stages of the surgery used to treat children with single ventricle heart defects. The end goal of the $6 million project, funded by Fondation Leducq in France, is to produce software that can be used for clinical decision support. These surgeries are typically done with three stages starting from birth: the Norwood (or variant), Glenn procedure, and Fontan surgery. According to Marsden, these young patients are among the most challenging for pediatric cardiologists to treat, and they can develop a number of very serious morbidities.

“While our group at UCSD has done research previously on the Fontan surgery (stage three), we were not able to take advantage of closed loop models of the circulatory system,” she said. “This collaboration will allow us to model the surgical connection in detail as well as the response of the entire circulation. In addition, this is the first time in our research group that we are taking a close look at the engineering aspects of the first two stages of the surgery, and that will hopefully shed light on possibilities for earlier interventions that can help prevent poor outcomes. The network gives us access to a large pool of clinical data through several leading clinical centers that are participating in the grant.”

Marsden is an American core member of the international research team on this project, which also includes Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, Politecnico di Milano in Milan, The French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA) in Paris, Medical University of South Carolina, University of Michigan, and Clemson University.

Wireless Sensor Research in Technology Review

The wireless sensor research from electrical engineering PhD student Yu "Mike" Chi and bioengineering professor Gert Cauwenberghs is profiled today in a Technology Review story by Lauren Gravitz, "Biosensors Comfortable Enough to Wear 24-7."

The story provides some really interesting details about how this technology could be used to improve at-home monitoring for heart patients. The story also includes some tantalizing forward-looking projects that could help people who are paralyzed communicate via their thoughts recorded by sensors that pick up brain activity.

Check out the story.

Learn more about the research and the UC San Diego student business plan competition that Mike Chi won in spring 2010.

See related photos on the Jacobs School blog.

Photo caption: Yu Mike Chi, an electrical engineering PhD student at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, demonstrates sensors how his sensors that do not not directly touch his skin pick up his heart beat.