Shaochen Chen receives NSF BRITE Award to develop 3D printed microscale human organs-on-a-chip

NSF Brite Fellow Shaochen Chen of the University of California San Diego will create a nanoscale biomanufacturing platform powered by artificial intelligence that can serve as a functional, three-dimensional model of human tissues, organs and systems. This “human-on-a-chip” could transform regenerative medicine and tools for disease modeling, drug screening, environmental studies, space exploration, and other applications. 

The National Science Foundation has awarded an engineering research grant to Shaochen Chen, professor and chair of nanoengineering at the University of California San Diego, to explore 3D printed microscale human organs-on-a-chip. 

Funded through the NSF Boosting Research Ideas for Transformative and Equitable Advances in Engineering (BRITE) program, the 5-year BRITE Fellow grants provide up to $1 million per project. The NSF BRITE program is funded by NSF Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) in the NSF Engineering Directorate. 

"NSF created the BRITE Fellows opportunity to support proven researchers who have a high-risk vision with the potential for high reward for the Nation," said CMMI Division Director Robert Stone. "We anticipate that the research of the BRITE Fellows will create new fields, challenge current paradigms, or present unconventional approaches to intractable problems."

With funding from the NSF Brite program, Chen will create a nanoscale biomanufacturing platform powered by artificial intelligence that can serve as a functional, three-dimensional model of human tissues, organs and systems. This "human-on-a-chip" could transform regenerative medicine and tools for disease modeling, drug discovery and screening, environmental toxicity studies, and other applications.

By powering his 3D bioprinting platform with artificial intelligence, Chen aims to minimize the trial-and-error associated with the process that often leads to waste of cells and time. "This is a critical issue for bioprinting since live cells are quite expensive, difficult to acquire (think of patient cells, for example), and do not survive well outside the incubator," he said. 

The ultimate goal of the project is to fabricate a human-on-a-chip in a microfluidic platform that integrates major human tissues including heart, liver, kidney, lung, and gut, and then study the chip's biomechanics and tissue functions. 

Jacobs School engineers named to Explorers Club 50 list

A Jacobs School of Engineering graduate student and a recent PhD alumna were among the 50 scientific explorers named to The Explorers Club 50 list of people changing the world who the world needs to know about. 

Founded in 1904 by a group of America's leading explorers, The Explorers Club is a multi-disciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research, scientific exploration, and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore. The club's mission is to encourage and promote scientific exploration of land, sea, air and space, with an emphasis on the physical and biological sciences. 

Vid Petrovic, computer science PhD student

UC San Diego computer science PhD student Vid Petrovic was named to the list for his work with the Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative and the Drone Lab at the Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego. His research interests span computer graphics, scientific visualization, machine learning and GIS, with a focus on the challenges of the accelerating collection and accumulation of site data in marine ecology, digital archaeology and cultural heritage. He is the principle developer of the Viscore platform, a software environment for integrating collected site data and performing virtual fieldwork, 

"I work to help make virtual exploration of remote sites practical and useful," said Petrovic. "Drawing on experience in digital documentation of archeological sites in Jordan and on digital augmented fieldwork in Florence, Italy, which is part of a search for a lost DaVinci wall painting, I have been developing tools and techniques for performing fieldwork digitally, especially on sites that are difficult to access.

"An underwater cave system such as the Sac Actun in the Yucatan is inaccessible except to highly skilled divers. Remote reefs such as the Palmyra Atoll do not require as much diving skill, but still present logistical barriers to a frequent, thorough study. In either case, opportunities for in-person exploration are constrained by the realities of underwater work. To get around this, we can use the limited time in the field to digitize the site through systematic imaging and surveying so that it can be explored virtually."

Jessica Sandoval, 2021 materials science PhD alumna

Jessica Sandoval, who earned her PhD in materials science and engineering in the Bioinspired Robotics and Design Lab at UC San Diego in 2021, is an avid ocean explorer, engineer and scientist. As a pilot of remotely operated vehicles (ROV), she works to advance technology in the fields of bioinspired robotics and deep-sea exploration by designing new adhesives and grippers for use in subsea manipulations. 

"As an ROV pilot, engineer and scientist, I strive to push boundaries and ultimately to transform the face of exploration. Working in the heavily male-dominated field of ROV piloting, I became one of a small handful of lead female pilots. With the support of the Ocean Exploration Trust, I have grown as a leader at sea. I have taken on additional roles on the ship, including working as a 15-ton certified crane operator during deck operations for launch and recovery of the vehicles. 

"Through my experiences, it became clear to me that representation and advocacy is crucial to broadening these fields to be more inclusive. I strive to encourage the participation of young women to join these fields. I frequently give guest lectures and presentations to young students and help to proctor workshops to encourage young women in STEM fields. I hope to lead by example and show that a Latina woman can push past barriers of representation and change the notion of what it means to be an explorer."

Winter 2022 senior design projects include a Pull-up Power Meter, more visible buoys

Mechanical and aerospace engineering students at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering presented their capstone senior design projects on March 16, showcasing projects ranging from a more comfortable soft robotic prosthetic, to a solar car vehicle suspension, a dermal cooling vest and more. 

In the senior design course, teams of students apply their hands-on skills and knowledge of engineering theory to solve a real-world engineering challenge sponsored by a local company or research lab. They have 10 weeks to put all they’ve learned into practice, working within real world constraints like budgets and timelines. 

The small orange and red radar 
reflector sitting on the buoy
antenna makes the buoy far more
visible to nearby ships.

This quarter, one team of students was challenged with creating a radar reflector for the Coastal Data Information Program(CDIP) at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. CDIP maintains a fleet of buoys in U.S. waters around the world equipped with various sensors and instruments to gather wave and climatology data. Occasionally, ships don’t see these buoys on their radar screens, and collide with them, causing damage and downtime for the data-gathering instruments. To make these buoys more visible and reduce collision, the students designed a spherical radar reflector to sit on the buoy’s antenna, which is visible from 5 times as far away as the existing long, cylindrical radar reflector being used. Their reflector means the CDIP buoys will show up on ship radar screens at a distance of 500 meters away, compared to the current 100 meters that existing reflectors reach. Currently, one of the student-designed radar reflectors is being used on a data-gathering buoy off the coast of Imperial Beach in San Diego, California. 

A printed circuit
board inside the black boxes contains 
a load cell and battery, allowing the
force of each arm to be 
measured in real time. 

Another team, sponsored by UC San Diego senior associate athletic director Matthew Kritz, was tasked with developing a tool for athletes and coaches to measure muscle disparities in different arms to prevent injury and develop training plans. The students designed a pull-up power meter that detects the force applied by each arm as someone does a pull up or other upper body exercise, and reads out that information in real-time on a web app. A small box containing a printed circuit board, load cell and battery can be attached to various types of suspension straps, and will wirelessly transmit the force applied by each arm independently, via Bluetooth, to the app. This data can help athletes correct any imbalances, thereby reducing injury and reaching their peak performance. 

More information on the senior design course or sponsoring a project here: https://sites.google.com/a/eng.ucsd.edu/mae156b-projects/sponsor-info

Applications are open for Galvanizing Engineering in Medicine awards

 The Galvanizing Engineering in Medicine (GEM) initiative is now accepting applications for the Gemini and Gemstones awards. GEM is a collaboration between the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute, and the Institute of Engineering in Medicine, supporting projects that identify clinical challenges for which engineering solutions can be developed and implemented to improve health care.

 The Gemini Fellowship Program provides one pre-doctoral or post-doctoral researcher working at the interface of engineering and health sciences with an award of $15,000 for one year of stipend support.

The Gemini Faculty Mentor Award is given to one early career faculty or research series mentor a year, who has demonstrated a commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion in research training at the interfaces of engineering and biomedical sciences. The $15,000 award is meant to support the interdisciplinary research, research training mentoring and outreach activities of these early career researchers.

The Gemstones Community Engagement Research Award supports community engagement research, mentoring and outreach activities of faculty co-investigators teamed with undergraduate or graduate students. Three awards of up to $10,000 each are given each year.

 Applications for all three awards are now open. The deadline for applications is May 1. More details and application instructions included at the link for each award.

Sylvia Herbert receives young investigator award from the Office of Naval Research

Sylvia Herbert is one of 32 researchers in the United States to receive an award from the 2022 Young Investigator Program at the Office of Naval Research. 

The highly competitive, early career award recognizes prior academic achievement and potential for significant scientific breakthrough. 

Herbert is an assistant professor in the UC San Diego Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. She leads the Safe and Autonomous Systems Lab at the Jacobs School and is part of the UC San Diego Contextual Robotics Institute. The research project she was awarded for focuses on constructing and adapting control barrier functions for guaranteed safe control of autonomous systems.

Skywalker Legacy : building a moving prosthetic hand

By Kiran Kumar

A team of undergraduate students in the Biomedical Engineering Society at UC San Diego is undertaking an out-of-this-galaxy challenge: designing, building and testing a low-cost prosthetic hand that can be controlled seamlessly by the user’s own mind. The goal for the project, called Skywalker Legacy, is to enable simple procedures involved in day-to-day life — including moving individual fingers, holding and moving objects — for those who use prosthetics. 

Students in the Biomedical Engineering
Society's Skywalker Legacy project.

To build this non-invasive prosthetic, there are a number of challenges the team of students will need to address, including mechanical and software challenges. Darin Tsui, a bioengineering undergraduate student, illustrated how the team’s model would mechanically imitate a hand’s physiology. At the bottom of a hand, there are muscle nerves. Stimulating the muscle nerve pulls at the joint to move a finger. 

“To mimic this, we’re using linear actuators as the muscle nerves, and the hinges act as joints to move the fingers,” said Tsui. 

The flexibility of the selected material, likely resin, would impact whether hinges are necessary, or if a wire from the linear actuators to the fingertip would suffice. 

An early prototype of one 
of the prosthetic fingers
the students plan to develop.

Additionally, there are a number of software challenges which Skywalker Legacy will face. Charlie Anderson, a bioinformatics student, said getting individual digit control is going to be quite difficult. In order to detect messenger signals from the body, they will be using non-invasive surface electrodes strategically placed on each relevant muscle group in the subject’s forearm. This is a well established method referred to as electromyography. These signals will have to be delivered to the linear actuators, acting as the muscle nerves for the hand. Since these signals are taken non-invasively, they are very general. To translate these signals, Anderson and his team will use a machine learning program which will output a digit number that corresponds to a specific finger. Then, the hardware team will translate this output to stimulate the linear actuator of the particular finger.

Jay Chen, a bioengineering student and the project co-chair, said he has a lot of confidence in this team. He explained that the project name, Skywalker Legacy, originated from the majority of the team being self-proclaimed Star Wars nerds. He knew that this had to be a tribute to the Skywalkers as, “two out of three of them have lost an arm.”

The team hopes to have a functioning prototype by May or June, when they will conduct functionality tests. They hope that next year, they can expand on the project and further the Skywalker Legacy project.

What's it like to participate in autonomous car races in Indy and CES?

Over the past several months, UC San Diego engineering, computer science, and data science students had the opportunity to participate in not one, but two, first-of-their-kind autonomous car races. Partnering with the University of Hawaii on the AI Racing Tech team, students participated in the first ever autonomous high speed car race at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home to the Indy 500. Then, the team traveled to Las Vegas to compete in the first head-to-head, high-speed autonomous car race held during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). 

What was it like to participate in these high profile events as a student? UC San Diego computer science master's student Siddharth Saha shares some quick thoughts: 

Siddharth Saha, right, stands in front of the
full-sized race car he and other students
turned into an autonomous vehicle.

1) What do you study at UC San Diego?

-For the majority of the competition I was doing my bachelor's in the Data Science program at UC San Diego, which I believe was very important for my role in the competitions. I am currently a master's student in Computer Science at UC San Diego.

2) How did you get involved in these autonomous car events?

-During the data science program I took part in the senior capstone project. The senior capstone had us choose a domain of interest. Professor Jack Silberman was willing to mentor students under that class and I was able to get my first exposure to autonomous vehicles from there. After that I joined student org Triton AI which was extending the work we did in the capstone, and ended up taking part in several of these autonomous car events

3) What was it like to get to participate in both races, at the famed Indy and Las Vegas tracks?

-Both were extremely thrilling. It's an experience not many college students receive, to stand in the pits of the famed tracks and warm up a full-sized race car

4) Favorite moment?

-Driving around in the Indiana Motor Speedway at 100mph+

5) Least favorite moment?

-We experienced a lot of hardware faults that were always frustrating

6) Advice for current/future students who want to participate in these type of events?

-Join Triton AI. Even now we are actively recruiting for these big events. We have several members new to robotics but who still contribute to these big competitions. Committing hours and a willingness to learn are the most important