Engineering professors share their big ideas for 2016—and beyond

The new year is a time to take stock of past accomplishments, and UC San Diego has no shortage of those. We once again surpassed $1 billion in research funding in 2014–15, an extraordinary accomplishment that places us among the top five research universities in the nation. And we put that research funding to good use—in 2015, Washington Monthly once again ranked UC San Diego as the No. 1 university in the nation for its positive impact.

The new year is also a time to look forward to what we want to accomplish next. Here, professors from the Jacobs School of Engineering share their "big ideas" for revolutionizing research and education for the benefit of human health and society.

3D-print patient-compatible organs and tissues for transplants

Shaochen Chen, professor in the Department of NanoEngineering and co-director of the Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Center

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world are in need of organ transplants. Unfortunately, organs for transplants are in short supply and even when they are available, there are risks of transplant rejection due to significant molecular and biological differences between the donor and the patient. 3D bioprinting is an ideal technology to create patient-specific tissues or organs, especially when human-induced pluripotent cells from the same patient are used for tissue growth. “If we could encourage more interdisciplinary collaboration among bioengineers, materials scientists, biologists, and clinical doctors to focus on 3D printing patient-specific functional tissues and organs, we could help more people get the lifesaving organ transplants they need before it’s too late,” says Chen. 

Develop microtechnologies to personalize treatment regimens

Shyni Varghese, professor in the Department of Bioengineering and director of the Bio-Inspired Materials and Stem Cell Engineering Laboratory

Drug responses vary significantly from patient to patient. Therefore, developing a therapeutic regimen tailored for each patient is critically important. “Today we can personalize everything from computers and phones to Facebook profiles, so why not medicine?” asks Varghese. “Let’s engineer patient-specific, three-dimensional ‘organs-on-a-chip’ from patients’ own stem cells. We can use these patient-specific test beds to identify the best combination of drugs and dosages to maximize therapeutic efficacy in each individual. Such next-generation technologies will revolutionize the standard of patient care and push the boundaries of medicine.” 

Build robots that provide surgeons with super-human capabilities

Michael Yip, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the Advanced Robotics and Controls Lab

The practice of surgery has only ever been as good as the skills of the surgeon. Even the best surgeons are limited by what their own hands are able to achieve and can still make mistakes. But technology in this age is giving rise to robotics systems that are equipped with more capabilities and can perform various tasks with more precision than humans could ever achieve. "We routinely see popular media portray superheroes like Iron Man using robotics as a means of delivering massive power and destruction, and yet the reality is that robotics has the ability to improve the precision and delicate touch of surgeons beyond what their own hands can do alone," says Yip. "I invite San Diego researchers and industry to work with me to develop new robot-assistive devices and systems that will provide surgeons with super-human abilities—to navigate the body remotely and access anatomies they could not previously reach, to have augmented reality ‘X-ray vision’ to visualize subsurface lesions, and to perform surgeries with robotically enhanced, micromillimeter precision."

Check out more "big ideas" from other visionaries around campus in the story from This Week @ UC San Diego.

Former Walt Disney Imagineer brings flexible and surgical robotics to UC San Diego, joins Jacobs School faculty

A future in which robots can maneuver with high agility, dexterity and precision is not too far away. These flexible robots could one day assist with surgeries, navigate through tight, complex environments with ease, and be used to develop prosthetics that are capable of natural movement.

(A) Robotic systems such as the da Vinci surgical system have served as important platforms for device design and control algorithms for robot-assisted surgery. (B) New robot designs of flexible manipulators and arms provide means to control agile and dexterous motions for surgical catheters and endoscopes. (C) Actuators designed to mimic human muscle performance are designed for applications in prosthetics and animatronics. Image credit: M. Yip. 

The design and intelligent control of flexible and surgical robotics are the specialties of Michael Yip, one of the new faculty joining the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. Yip received his Ph.D from the Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. He will arrive in November as an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego and will direct the new Advanced Robotics and Controls Laboratory (ARCLab). His research involves developing advanced algorithms that can control flexible robotics to move with high agility and dexterity. He also designs novel robotic systems that mimic the natural motion of animal and human bodies.

“Intelligent control of flexible robotics is a challenge that’s been plaguing the field. To make flexible robotics work effectively in places like the human body, we need to figure out how to control the robotics to crawl through constrained spaces and do manipulations without causing damage to their surroundings or to themselves,” said Yip.

This type of control is important in applications like robot-assisted surgery. For example, a surgeon could control a long, thin, flexible robotic device to snake its way through a patient’s body and perform surgery with high precision and safety. Use of these robotic devices could also offer less invasive surgical procedures.

Michael Yip, a new professor joining the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego.

“Rather than dissecting the patient’s body, a surgeon could just make one or two small incisions on the body to insert these surgical robotic devices,” said Yip.

Controlling flexible robotics to maneuver through tight spaces — in a minimally invasive manner — is also useful in industrial applications including manufacturing, inspection and assembly. For example, flexible robotics could be used to inspect the wiring in an airplane wing or do repairs deep within a car engine without having to disassemble any major machinery.

Yip also works on making artificial muscles and actuators that can mimic biological muscle performance. Previously, he worked as a Walt Disney Imagineer within the Disney Research division, where he developed a technology for creating low-cost artificial muscles using conductive sewing thread. These synthetic muscles could contract and expand just like human muscles and were used to make life-like animatronic hands and arms. The artificial muscles were featured this summer in Popular Mechanics and Gizmodo.

Watch out for Yip in the upcoming UC San Diego Contextual Robotics Forum on Oct. 30. He will be presenting a poster and demonstration of his work at the Technology Showcase.

Register for the Contextual Robotics Forum here.