ICB Systems and Synthetic Biology co-leader and project leader of four ICB projects, UCSB Chemical Engineering Professor Michelle O’Malley has received the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) 2021 Allan P. Colburn Award for Excellence in Publications by a Young Member of the Institute. The award recognizes significant contributions to chemical engineering through publications by younger members of the institute and is the most prestigious award for early-career chemical engineers given by the AIChE.

The ICB is proud to announce that two highly distinguished ICB Project Leaders, UCSB Professors Craig Hawker and Rachel Segalman have been elected to the 2021 class of the National Academy of Engineers (NAE).

ICB Caltech project leader since 2003, Frances Arnold will serve as co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), along with Maria Zuber the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and vice president for research at MIT. They are the first women to serve as co-chairs of PCAST and will advise the president on matters involving science, technology, education, and innovation policy. 

Congratulations to Craig Hawker, ICB Project Leader and UCSB Distinguished Professor, for winning the 2021 Kathryn C. Hach Award for Entrepreneurial Success from the American Chemical Society (ACS). The award is in recognition of Hawker’s “innovative leadership in creating, developing, and commercializing revolutionary polymer-based therapeutics and personal-care products through multiple successful start-up companies.”

ICB Bio-Enabled Materials project leader and MIT professor of Biological Engineering, Mark Bathe and his colleague, MIT Professor Darrell Irvine are senior authors of the study, which appears today in Nature Nanotechnology, Role of nanoscale antigen organization on B-cell activation probed using DNA origami. By using a technique known as DNA origami to fold DNA into a virus-like structure, MIT researchers have designed HIV-like particles coated with HIV antigens in precise patterns, which may eventually be used as an HIV vaccine and potentially applied to other types of viruses.

As ICB Co-Director Professor Scott Grafton steps down, we are pleased to announce that Professor Barry Giesbrecht has been appointed to succeed Grafton as new ICB Co-Director. Giesbrecht has been leading research projects with the ICB for more than a dozen years and has been co-leader, alongside Grafton, of the ICB research focus area—Cognitive Neuroscience.

ICB Project Leader Enoch Yeung and his UCSB colleague Omar Saleh have won a three-year, $1 million award from the W.M. Keck Foundation to develop a synthetic, autonomous, gene-regulated 'cell'. With this award, the researchers will not only be able to investigate some of the fundamental aspects of cellular processes, but also to develop a synthetic system that exploits genetic feedback to create dramatic structural outputs, phase transformations and perhaps even movement.

Two ICB researchers launch a new Mellichamp Academic Initiative, Mind & Machine Intelligence. William Wang and Miguel Eckstein are bringing together computational scientists studying the human mind with computer scientists and engineers to create new ways of looking at fundamental problems in science, engineering, and humanities that are highly relevant to modern society.

ICB co-director and co-leader of the ICB research focus area Cognitive Neuroscience, Scott Grafton has written a new book: Physical Intelligence: The Science of How the Body and the Mind Guide Each Other Through Life. While Grafton's passion for neuroscience is well known and can be seen in his many titles, he is also a passionate outdoorsman. In this work, Grafton elegantly weaves these two together as he thoughtfully explains the findings of this intriguing research.

Michael Chabinyc, Project Leader in the ICB’s Bio-Enabled Materials focus area and UCSB Materials Department Chair, has been elected as fellow of the NAI for demonstrating "a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development and welfare of society.”