Engineering is the Future of Health Care. Attend Research Expo at UC San Diego on April 17.

Engineering and computational science are the future of health care. This future includes genomics and the full roster of related “omics” fields, of course. UC San Diego, the Torrey Pines Mesa, and San Diego are taking a leadership role in developing ever-deeper connections between engineering, computing, medicine and health care that are aimed at improving human health. 


UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering graduate students, for example, are working on hundreds of different projects aimed at accelerating health care innovation through engineering applications. Research Expo on April 17 at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering is a great opportunity to meet many of these students and learn about their projects—in person and all in one afternoon.

At Research Expo 2013, (L-R) Roy Levkowitz of Aethlon Medical and a UC San Diego bioengineering alumnus; and Raj Krishnan, Co-Founder and CEO of Biological Dynamics, came back to campus to serve as poster judges. Pictured here with their former PhD advisor, UC San Diego Bioengineering and NanoEngineernig professor Michael Heller.

More than 50 of the 200 posters that engineering graduate students will present at Research Expo are tagged as relevant for the “Life Sciences / Medical Devices & Instruments” industries. And those are just the posters the students tagged themselves. Probably just as exciting are the emerging technologies that COULD be leveraged for future health care / life sciences applications.

For example, at Research Expo 2011, electrical engineering Ph.D. graduate student Chirag Patel (who has since graduated and now works at Qualcomm) received some unexpected feedback on his work on RF MEMS metal-contact switches, work that won him the grand prize of the poster session. During the final round of judging, the faculty judge from bioengineering asked Patel what would happen if he put his switch in water.

“I thought about it, and I answered the question; but then I asked him why would you want to do that, and he said, ‘Well, that would be really useful for us in bioengineering,’” explained Patel, who was surprised that bioengineers would be interested in his work.

We would want to hire you tomorrow if this thing worked in water, the bioengineer said.

What are the will-it-work-in-water questions of 2014? And what exciting advances might that these questions lead to? Find out for yourself. Register for Research Expo, which is Thursday April 17 from 2 to 6 PM at UC San Diego.

In addition to the posters session, Research Expo includes six fast-paced faculty talks and a networking reception.

Bioengineering professor Karen Christman’s talk: “Injectable Biomaterials for Treating Cardiovascular Disease.”

Electrical engineering professor Truong Nguyen’s talk: “3D Model & Video Processing in Health Care Applications”

* Research Expo admission is $100. Register here.

* Half-price for UC San Diego alumni.
* Jacobs School of Engineering Corporate Affiliates Program members receive 2-for-1 admission.

Research Expo 2014 Posters 

Below are just a few of the official “Life Sciences / Medical Devices & Instruments” posters at Research Expo. Have a look at the entire list of poster titles here. When you register for Research Expo, you get access to the full abstracts of each poster.

1. STORED BLOOD QUALITY DIAGNOSTIC DEVICE
Student: Shawn Raymond Mailo 
Professor: Pedro J. Cabrales Arevalo
Industry Application Areas: Life Sciences/Medical Devices & Instruments

4. SILICA NANOPARTICLES FOR ENZYME DELIVERY IN CANCER TREATMENT
Student: Ya-San Yeh 
Professor: Sadik C. Esener
Industry Application Areas: Life Sciences/Medical Devices & Instruments

6. RAPID PROTEASE DETECTION DIRECTLY IN WHOLE BLOOD
Student : Augusta Esmeralda Modestino
Professor: Michael Heller
Industry Application Areas: Life Sciences/Medical Devices & Instruments

13. BIOMATERIAL ASSISTED BONE TISSUE REPAIR
Students: Heemin Kang | Cai Wen | Yu-Ru V. Shih | Yongsung Hwang 
Professor: Shyni Varghese
Industry Application Areas: Life Sciences/Medical Devices & Instruments | Materials

67. REVOLUTIONIZING LAPAROSCOPY WITH GLASSES-FREE MULTIVIEW 3D
Student: Jason Juang 
Professor: Truong Nguyen
Industry Application Areas: Life Sciences/Medical Devices & Instruments

139. INTRAOCULAR PRESSURE SENSOR
Student: Alex Minh Giang Phan
Professor: Frank E. Talke
Industry Application Areas: Life Sciences/Medical Devices & Instruments

The Jacobs School of Engineering

With more than 1,700 engineering graduate students, 200+ engineering professors and $158M is engineering research expenditures, the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering is teeming with cutting-edge research projects and entrepreneurial engineers looking to transfer their advances to society in order to solve problems, advance technology and make the world a better place.

The Institute of Engineering in Medicine at UC San Diego and the Department of Bioengineering at UC San Diego are key player in this process. (Bioengineering Day at UC San Diego is Saturday April 12.)