Bioengineering

The ME Graduate Women's Group has offered ME/ENGR 311A: Women's Perspectives, a 1-unit credit seminar, every year since the group's inception in 1998. For credit or not, everyone is welcome to come! Speakers are asked to address the factors, experiences, and lessons that have been particularly important to their success in industry, academia, and... life. 

4:15pm Social | 4:30pm Seminar starts

Last modified Thu, 14 Jan, 2016 at 11:37

Researchers have developed a new way to use atomic force microscopy to rapidly measure the mechanical properties of cells at the nanometer scale, an advance that could pave the way for better understanding immune disorders and cancer.

In his role as a pediatrician, Manish Butte, MD, PhD, will often push and prod a patient’s abdomen, feeling for abnormalities — a swollen spleen, a hardened lymph node or an unusual lump in the intestines or liver. There are still some things that can only be gleaned by touch, and Butte believes this notion applies to individual cells as well.

Last modified Wed, 3 Feb, 2016 at 8:08

The basic process of force-generation in muscle has been known for decades, but until now no one has ever seen it work at a microscopic level in a living human. The new microscope could provide unique insights into treating muscular degenerative diseases.

Millions of people each year are diagnosed with diseases that result in the loss of neuromuscular function. One of the complications in treating these people has been an inability to track the progression of disease and provide the best possible therapeutics.

Now, a team of Stanford researchers has developed a microscope that can visualize and measure the force-generating contractions of these patients' individual motor units. This action has been studied for nearly 100 years, but this is the first time it has ever been observed in the muscles of a living human.

Last modified Thu, 17 Dec, 2015 at 10:14

A new technique can reveal subtle differences among the genomes of multiple species and subspecies of microbes.

A collaboration between computer science engineers and geneticists at Stanford University has produced a novel technique for mapping the diversity of bacteria living in the human gut.

The new approach revealed a far more diverse community than the researchers had anticipated. “The bacteria are genetically much more heterogeneous than we thought,” said Michael Snyder, PhD, professor and chair of genetics.

Last modified Tue, 15 Dec, 2015 at 14:26

A new tool enables researchers to test millions of mutated proteins in a matter of hours or days, speeding the search for new medicines, industrial enzymes and biosensors.

All living things require proteins, members of a vast family of molecules that nature "makes to order" according to the blueprints in DNA.

Through the natural process of evolution, DNA mutations generate new or more effective proteins. Humans have found so many alternative uses for these molecules – as foods, industrial enzymes, anti-cancer drugs – that scientists are eager to better understand how to engineer protein variants designed for specific uses.

Last modified Thu, 10 Dec, 2015 at 16:25

Three Stanford professors honored by Breakthrough Prize Foundation

Karl Deisseroth, professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford, won a $3 million 2016 Breakthrough Prize in life sciences for his contributions to the development of optogenetics, a technique that uses light to control the behavior of cells and has proved especially invaluable in the study of nerve-cell circuits in the brain.

Last modified Tue, 10 Nov, 2015 at 14:26

Fifteen Stanford graduate students in business, computer science and bioengineering were recently named 2016 Siebel Scholars for outstanding academic performance and leadership in their fields.

(Photo: Joel Simon Images)

Last modified Thu, 5 Nov, 2015 at 15:31

Stanford has added a permanent undergraduate training program to this new field “at the interface of life sciences and engineering.”

Ever since Stanford Engineering and Stanford Medicine joined together to create the Bioengineering Department in 2002, the ultimate plan was to begin with a Master’s and PhD program and eventually add an undergraduate major.

The Faculty Senate brought this plan to fruition during the last academic year by approving Bioengineering an undergraduate major in perpetuity. Faculty Senate President Russell Berman described the new major as a milestone in Stanford’s academic life.

Last modified Thu, 22 Oct, 2015 at 14:51

Brandeis University bestows the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine on the Stanford bioengineer whose analyses using microscopic amounts of fluids are providing new medical insights.

Stephen Quake, a pioneering Stanford bioengineer whose work with microscopic amounts of fluid is transforming medicine, has received Brandeis University’s Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine.

Last modified Wed, 21 Oct, 2015 at 13:28

Researchers stripped a virus of its infectious machinery and turned its benign core into a delivery vehicle that can target sick cells while leaving healthy tissue alone.

Stanford researchers have ripped the guts out of a virus and totally redesigned its core to repurpose its infectious capabilities into a safe vehicle for delivering vaccines and therapies directly where they are needed.

The study reported today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences breathes new life into the field of targeted delivery, the ongoing effort to fashion treatments that affect diseased areas but leave healthy tissue alone.

Last modified Mon, 28 Sep, 2015 at 9:09