Computational and Synthetic Biology

Seeing Light in 'Impossible' Places

Biomedical engineers at the University of California, Davis, have developed a fast and cost-effective microscopy system capable of imaging depths previously impossible to reach in scattering tissues, such as bone and the brain.

Biomedical Engineering Professor Cheemeng Tan Receives NIH Grant to Engineer Synthetic Bacteria for Translational Clinical Medicine

Unlike the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, the synthetic bacteria in Cheemeng Tan’s lab will not find a way to replicate. As he explains, ‘We will modify our synthetic bacteria using a method that turns them into controllable living micromachines.’ That means clinicians will be able to administer them in a controlled way for medical applications, including delivering medicine within the body, CRISPR-Cas gene editing, killing cancer cells, and administering probiotics and oral vaccines.