Program at a Glance

Symposium and industry showcase agenda.

Coffee available onsite during the mornings, courtesy of our sponsors. Please enjoy breakfast at your dorm or hotel.

All events on August 8th will take place in Corwin Pavillion.

Concurrent oral sessions occur on August 9-10, the location and speaker details can be found in the drop-down menus.

Monday (August 8th): Biotechnology Industry Showcase

Time (PDT) Sessions Description
7:30-8:15 UCSB shuttle vans from hotels First vans depart hotels at 7:30 and last depart around 8:15

8:00-8:20

8:25- 8:40AM

Arrival and check-in

Opening Remarks- BioE Director Beth Pruitt and Interim Dean of Engineering, Tresa Pollock

 
 

Oral Session 1: Systems Biology, Genomics, and Machine Learning

Moderator: Dr. Enoch Yeung

3 platform talks given by industry professionals
8:45-9:00AM Zachary Ruhe, PhD: AffinityBio  
9:05-9:20AM Maryam Ziaei, PhD: iSono Health  
9:25-9:40AM Tracy Fung: Illumina  
9:40-10:00AM Coffee Break - Sponsored by Illumina Chat and network with biotech companies and UC students
  Oral Session 2: Diagnostics and Precision Medicine

Moderator: Dr. Meghan Morrissey

3 platform talks given by industry professionals
10:00-10:15AM Scott Ferguson, PhD: Aptitude  
10:20-10:35AM Diego Rey, PhD: Endpoint Health and Co-Founder of GeneWEAVE  
10:40-10:55AM Nancy Stagliano, PhD: Neuron23  
11:00AM-12:00PM Roundtables Networking Workshop

Moderator: Dr. Brian Dincau

Discuss different career prompts with students and industry attendees
12:05-1:00PM Boxed Lunch

Hosted lunch tables with Industry
1:00-1:55PM Keynote Address Todd McDevitt, Sana Biotechnology
  Oral Session 3: Biomaterials, Devices, and Tissue Engineering

Moderator: Dr. Angela Pitenis

3 platform talks given by industry professionals
2:00-2:15PM Aliyeh Mousavi, PhD: VitroLabs  
2:20-2:35PM John Harley, PhD: Owl Biomedical  
2:40-2:55PM Mahsa Mohiti-Asli, PhD: BASF  
2:55-3:05PM Coffee Break- Sponsored by Illumina Chat and network with biotech companies and UC students
  Oral Session 4: Synthetic Biology and Regenerative Medicine

Moderator: Dr. Dennis Clegg

3 platform talks given by industry professionals
3:05-3:20PM Britney Pennington, PhD: Regenerative Patch Technologies  
3:25-3:40PM Todd Peterson, PhD: GenApex Bio  
3:45-4:00PM Chuck Frazier, PhD: Apeel  
4:05-5:00PM Industry Panel - Broadening Your Career Landscape: How to Shift your Path into Biotechnology

Moderator: Dr. Tal Margalith

Moderated panel on careers in biotech and professional development
5:00-6:30 Opening Reception and Undergraduate Research Poster Session- Sponsored by Corning

Welcome to Research Sessions: Vice Chancellor of Research Joe Incandela.

Networking with drinks and light appetizers with remarks by Gold Sponsor Corning

Learn about undergraduate research projects

Tuesday (August 9th): BIC Research Symposium

Time (PDT) Sessions Description
7:00-7:45AM UCSB shuttle vans from hotels First vans depart hotels at 7:00 and last depart around 7:45
8:00-8:15AM Opening Remarks and Program Review

Dean Pierre Wiltzius, MLPS

Program Committee
8:15-9:15AM Keynote Address Prof. Viola Vogel, ETH Zürich
9:15-10:45AM Parallel Sessions
Mechanobiology I

Oral Session

Location:

Corwin Pavillion breakout room

Moderator:

Dr. Ryan Stowers

Speakers/Topics:

Prof. Viola Vogel (ETH Zürich): Harnessing mechanobiological principles for clinical applications

Alex Bermudez (UC Los Angeles): Unraveling the transcriptional response to geometric confinement during epithelial jamming transition

Dr. Cheavar Blair (UC Santa Barbara): The polyamine spermidine enhances the contractile force of µ-patterned single-cell stem-cell-derived cardiomyocytes post doxorubicin treatment

Taryn Loomis (UC Davis): Extracellular Matrix Stiffness and Architecture Drive Fibro-Adipogenic Progenitors’ Activation into Myofibroblasts

Savannah Brown (UC Riverside): Effects of Membrane Cholesterol Content on Morphological and Mechanical Characteristics of Red Blood Cells

Neuroscience and Neuroengineering

Oral Session

Location:

Flying A Studios breakout room

Moderator:

Dr. Yon Vissel

Speakers/Topics:

Prof. Reza Abbasi Asl (UC San Francisco): Compression-enabled interpretability of deep learning models for scientific discovery

Luke Zirretta (UC Santa Barbara): Electrogenic Gene Dynamics During Forebrain Differentiation from Embryonic Stem Cells

Greg Girardi (UC Davis): Electrophysiological Response of Primary Rat Vagal Afferent Neurons to Effector Molecules

Maral Kasiri (UC Irvine): Investigation of low frequency thalamic and pallidal local field potential correlation with voluntary movement in children with dystonia

Melissa Rupert (UC Los Angeles): Revealing Effects of Physiological Stimuli on Neuroepithelial Development in Forebrain Organoids

 
10:45-11:00AM Coffee Break- Sponsored by Amgen Chat and network with biotech companies and UC students
11:00AM-12:00PM Shu Chien Early Career Lecturers I
Speakers and Topics

Oral Session

Location:

Corwin Pavillion

Speakers/Topics:

Prof. Randy Carney (UC Davis): Surface enhanced Raman scattering of extracellular vesicles: a new toolbox for clinical diagnostics

Prof. Iain Clark (UC Berkeley): Microfluidic Nucleic Acid Cytometry Reveals Transcriptional Programs of HIV Silencing and Cell Survival in HIV Infected Memory CD4 T Cells

Prof. Siddharth Dey (UC Santa Barbara): Developing integrated single-cell epigenome and transcriptome sequencing technologies to study early mammalian development

Prof. Matthew Kutys (UC San Francisco): Decoding morphogenic instruction in human biomimetic systems

Prof. Shaun McKinnie (UC Santa Cruz): Intercept and redirect: The role of site-specific vanadium-dependent haloperoxidase enzymology in microbial communities

 
12:00PM-1:00PM Boxed Lunch  
1:00-2:30PM Parallel Sessions
Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

Oral Session

Location:

Corwin Pavillion breakout room

Moderator:

Dr. Dennis Clegg

Speakers/Topics: 

Prof. Shulamit Levenberg (Technion - Israel Institute of Technology): Bioprinting vascularized tissue flaps

Prof. Joshua Morgan (UC Riverside): Demonstration of an Adipose-Vascularized Human Skin Equivalent Culture Model for Photoaging

Dr. Melissa Andrade (UC Irvine): Bioengineering Stem cell-based Liver Models

Dr. Christian Hunter Wallace (UC Irvine): Development of in vitro models of skeletal muscle to investigate structure-function relationships

Xuexiang (Cher) Zhang (UC Los Angeles): Immunomodulatory microneedle patch for periodontal tissue regeneration

Synthetic Biology, Genome Engineering, and Protein Engineering

Oral Session

Location:

Flying A Studios breakout room

Moderator:

Dr. Siddharth Dey

Speakers/Topics: 

Prof. Priya Shah (UC Davis): Unraveling viral disease mechanisms using systems biology

Dr. Xiao Huang (UC San Francisco): Activation and reprogramming of CAR-T cells using precisely functionalized biomaterials for improved safety and efficacy

Dr. Ziliang Huang (UC San Diego): Inducible Droplets for Simultaneous Imaging and Manipulation of Genome Loci in Live Cells

Runrui Dang (UC Riverside): Human SUMOylation Pathway Is Critical for Influenza B Virus

Brian Orcutt-Jahns (UC Los Angeles): Multivalency enhances the specificity of Fc-cytokine fusions
2:30-3:00PM

Invited talk: Dr. Maziar Shah-Mohammadi (CIRM)

Moderator: Dr. Dennis Clegg

Advancing Cell and Gene Therapies in California and Beyond
3:00- 3:15PM Coffee Break- Sponsored by Amgen Chat and network with biotech companies and UC students
3:15-4:45PM Poster Presentations  
5:00-9:00PM

Gala Dinner and Networking Event- Sponsored by Inogen

Santa Cruz Ocean Lawn

 Networking reception with drinks followed by dinner.  Remarks by Chancellor Henry Yang and Dan McCusker, VP of Engineering of Platinum Sponsor Inogen
Map of path for gala dinner

Committee Meetings

Tues. Aug 9th, 11am: BIC Industry Liaison Committee Meeting

Location: Harbor Room, UCen

All industry members invited to attend. Hosted by Walt Baxter and Song Li.

Tues. Aug 9th, 12:15pm: BIC Steering Committee Business Meeting

Location: Harbor Room, UCen

All committee members (or UC campus representatives) are invited to grab their box lunch and join for discussion of BIC business. Hosted by Song Li and Scott Simon.

Wednesday (August 10th): BIC Research Symposium

Time (PDT) Sessions Description
7:00-7:45AM UCSB shuttle vans from hotels First vans depart hotels at 7:00 and last depart around 7:45
8:00-9:00AM  Keynote Address

Prof. Jennifer Prescher (UC Irvine): Spying on cellular communication with chemical probes and noninvasive imaging
9:00-10:30AM Parallel Sessions
Mechanobiology II

Oral Session

Location:

Corwin Pavillion breakout room

Moderator:

Dr. Sho Takatori

Speakers/Topics:

Prof. Sanjay Kumar (UC Berkeley): Mechanisms of Adhesion and Invasion in Hyaluronic Acid Matrices

Junsoo Lee (UC Irvine): Pneumatic control of blood flow in human skin for laser therapy

Prof. Siavash Ahrar (CSU Long Beach): SPIM-Flow: A Selective Plane Illumination Microscope Compatible with Fluidics

Isabella A. Bagdasarian (UC Riverside): Collagen molding techniques for highly contractile cultures

Marie Payne (UC Los Angeles): Flow Culture Reveals Hypoxia-Masked Phenotype and Drug Response in Prostate Cancer Spheroids

Synthetic Biology, Genome Engineering, and Protein Engineering II

Oral Session

Location:

Flying A Studios breakout room

Moderator:

Dr. Yang Yang

Speakers/Topics:

Conary Meyer (UC Davis): Rapid and Predictive Membrane Protein Synthesis ex vivo

Annie Trinh (UC Irvine): Targeting the Post-Replication Epigenome for Cell Fate Engineering

Linshan Zhu (UC San Diego): Simultaneous Genomic Locus Imaging and Manipulation by Elastin-like Proteins in Live Cells

Aakash Saha (UC Riverside): Tracing the dynamics of DNA traversal within CRISPR-Cas12a

Dr. Laura R Caggiano (UC Irvine): Hypoxia modulates human pulmonary arterial adventitial fibroblast phenotype through HIF-1α activation

Nastaran Abbasizadeh (UC Merced): Investigation of Microenvironmental Changes to the Bone Marrow after Myeloablative vs Reduced-Intensity Conditioning

 
10:30-10:45AM Coffee Break- Sponsored by Cytokinetics   Chat and network with biotech companies and UC students
10:45-11:45AM Shu Chien Early Career Lecturers II
Speakers and Topics

Oral Session

Location:

Corwin Pavillion

Speakers/Topics:

Prof. Aaron Meyer (UC Los Angeles): Mechanistic and data-driven dissection of cell communication through tensor methods

Prof. Ronke Olabisi (UC Irvine): Building a better dressing

Prof. Giulia Palermo (UC Riverside): Unraveling the Mechanistic Basis of the CRISPR-Cas Revolution through Computational Methods

Prof. Joel Spencer (UC Merced): Intravital Imaging of the Endogenous Mouse Thymus

Prof. Daniela Valdez-Jasso (UC San Diego): From the pulmonary arteries to the right heart: a multi-scale approach to understanding pulmonary arterial hypertension

 
11:45AM-1:00PM Boxed Lunch  
1:00-2:30PM Parallel Sessions
Biomedical Imaging I

Oral Session

Location:

Corwin Pavillion breakout room

Moderator:

Dr. Arnab Mukherjee

Speakers/Topics:

Prof. Changqing Li (UC Merced): Functional X-ray imaging

Dr. Claire Rabut (Caltech): Whole-brain imaging of tumor-brain interactions using acoustic reporter genes and fUSI

Dr. Hyou-Arm Joung (UC Los Angeles): Quantitative particle agglutination sensor enabled by deep learning and holography

Jingxi Li (UC Los Angeles): Deep learning-based non-invasive skin virtual histology using reflectance confocal microscopy

Tanishq Mathew Abraham (UC Davis): Virtual hematoxylin and eosin staining of qOBM microscopy with unsupervised deep learning

Biomaterials and Drug Delivery

Oral Session

Location:

Flying A Studios breakout room

Moderator:

Dr. Andrea Carlini

Speakers/Topics:

Song Li (UC Los Angeles): Biomaterials for neuromuscular regeneration

Dr. Yuxing Yao (Caltech): Non-invasive actuation of chemical reactions through biomechanochemistry

Shamima Zaman (UC Riverside): Membrane cholesterol enrichment of erythrocyte-derived optical nanoparticles

Prof. Jun Chen (UC Los Angeles): Smart Textiles for Personalized Healthcare

Dr. Mohammad Mahdi Hasani-Sadrabadi (UC Los Angeles): Biomaterial Vaccine Booster for Protective Immunity in Aged and Immunosuppressed Population
2:30-2:45PM Coffee Break- Sponsored by Cytokinetics  Chat and network with biotech companies and UC students
2:45-4:15PM Parallel Sessions
Biomedical Imaging II

Oral Session

Location:

Corwin Pavillion breakout room

Moderator:

Dr. Spencer Smith

Speakers/Topics:

Yile Fang (UC Merced): Fast and High Spatial Resolution X-ray Luminescence Computed Tomography Imaging

Amil Khan (UC Santa Barbara): BisQue: An ML Platform for Quantitative Image Analysis

Negar Tehrani (UC Merced): In Situ Intravital Microscopy of the Thymus

Dr. Elsi Verrinder (UC Santa Barbara): Comparison of voltametric methods used in the interrogation of electrochemical aptamer-based sensors

Kevin Ramirez (UC Merced): A Dimer-Partner Tug of War Mechanism for Building Fluorescence Protein Biosensors for the Detection of SARS-CoV-2

Grant Swajian (UC Riverside): Effects of Laser-Induced Shockwaves on Light Scattering

Systems Biology, Genomics, and Computational Biology

Oral Session

Location:

Flying A Studios breakout room

Moderator:

Dr. Max Wilson

Speakers/Topics:

Prof. Prashant Mali (UC San Diego): In vivo gene therapeutics via genome and transcriptome engineering

Prof. Jennifer Wilson (UC Los Angeles): Downstream proteins are predictive of drug combination effects and these effects are observed in electronic health records

Dr. Mitchel Colebank (UC Irvine): In-Silico Predictions of biventricular interaction during acute myocardial infarction in mice

Prof. Jiayu Liao (UC Riverside): Machine Learning Approaches Reveal Age- and Obese-dependent Treatment Strategies for COVID-19 Recurrence in Patients

Rochishnu Chowdhury (UC Santa Barbara): An open-source simulator for mapping diffusivity change to cell parameters with a genetically encoded diffusion-based reporter
4:15-6:00PM Closing Reception

Closing Remarks: UCSB EVC David Marshall

Awards Presentation: Song Li and Scott Simon

Thank you: Sid Dey and Arnab Mukherjee

Networking with drinks and light appetizers
Image of campus map