School of Engineering


Showing 1-9 of 9 Results

  • Peter L. Santa Maria, MBBS, PhD

    Peter L. Santa Maria, MBBS, PhD

    Associate Professor of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery (OHNS) and, by courtesy, of Bioengineering
    On Partial Leave from 08/01/2023 To 07/14/2024

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe study chronic suppurative otitis media, a chronic biofilm infection of the middle ear predominantly involving pseudomonas and staph aureus. We are investigating mechanisms of sensory hearing loss, host microbe interactions and trialling novel therapeutics.

    Our work in tympanic membrane regeneration has entered clinical trials.

    Novel treatments for wound healing in intra oral wounds with potential applications to prevent post tonsillectomy wound healing and oral mucositis.

  • Luise Avelina Seeker

    Luise Avelina Seeker

    Basic Life Research Scientist

    BioLuise Seeker is a trained vet from Berlin, Germany with a strong interest in researching ageing at a cellular level. She obtained a PhD in Genomics from the University of Edinburgh in 2018 for studying telomeres, their heritability and their power to predict lifespan (supervised by Profs. Georgios Banos, Dan Nussey, Mike Coffey and Bruce Whitelaw). She joined Prof. Anna Williams' lab at the University of Edinburgh as a postdoc and investigated transcriptional changes with ageing in the human central nervous system.

  • Hyongsok Tom  Soh

    Hyongsok Tom Soh

    Professor of Radiology (Early Detection), of Electrical Engineering, of Bioengineering and, by courtesy, of Chemical Engineering

    BioDr. Soh received his B.S. with a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science with Distinction from Cornell University and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. From 1999 to 2003, Dr. Soh served as the technical manager of MEMS Device Research Group at Bell Laboratories and Agere Systems. He was a faculty member at UCSB before joining Stanford in 2015. His current research interests are in analytical biotechnology, especially in high-throughput screening, directed evolution, and integrated biosensors.

  • James Swartz

    James Swartz

    James H. Clark Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Chemical Engineering and of Bioengineering

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsProgram Overview

    The world we enjoy, including the oxygen we breathe, has been beneficially created by biological systems. Consequently, we believe that innovative biotechnologies can also serve to help correct a natural world that non-natural technologies have pushed out of balance. We must work together to provide a sustainable world system capable of equitably improving the lives of over 10 billion people.
    Toward that objective, our program focuses on human health as well as planet health. To address particularly difficult challenges, we seek to synergistically combine: 1) the design and evolution of complex protein-based nanoparticles and enzymatic systems with 2) innovative, uniquely capable cell-free production technologies.
    To advance human health we focus on: a) achieving the 120 year-old dream of producing “magic bullets”; smart nanoparticles that deliver therapeutics or genetic therapies only to specific cells in our bodies; b) precisely designing and efficiently producing vaccines that mimic viruses to stimulate safe and protective immune responses; and c) providing a rapid point-of-care liquid biopsy that will count and harvest circulating tumor cells.
    To address planet health we are pursuing biotechnologies to: a) inexpensively use atmospheric CO2 to produce commodity biochemicals as the basis for a new carbon negative chemical industry, and b) mitigate the intermittency challenges of photovoltaic and wind produced electricity by producing hydrogen either from biomass sugars or directly from sunlight.
    More than 25 years ago, Professor Swartz began his pioneering work to develop cell-free biotechnologies. The new ability to precisely focus biological systems toward efficiently addressing new, “non-natural” objectives has proven tremendously useful as we seek to address the crucial and very difficult challenges listed above. Another critical feature of the program is the courage (or naivete) to approach important objectives that require the development and integration of several necessary-but- not-sufficient technology advances.