UCI School of Medicine From the office of the dean

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Dear colleagues,

I​’m pleased to announce that Anand K. Ganesan, MD, PhD, has accepted the role of associate dean for physician-scientist development, effective September 1, 2022.

This new role is a key position supporting Daniela M. Bota, MD, PhD, vice dean of clinical research. In his new role, Dr. Ganesan will be responsible for:
Creating a physician-scientist training program (analogous to the UCLA STAR Program) that combines clinical fellowships or residency training with formal advanced research training

  • Coordinating with clinical departments to develop and submit training grant applications
  • Collaborating with the Department of Medical Education and clinical departments to develop funded research programs for medical students (e.g., summer research projects)
  • Identifying gaps in the physician-scientist pipeline and working with stakeholders to increase opportunities for research training and support for grant submissions
  • Increasing the number of K award applications for junior scientists, including those faculty members that are part of the Physician-Scientist Training Program (PSTP) administered by the UCI School of Medicine Research Development Unit (RDU)

Dr. Ganesan is a UCI home-grown physician-scientist. He applied for a K award shortly after coming to UCI in 2006, and has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 2008.

Dr. Ganesan created a physician-scientist training program in the Department of Dermatology, which matched its first candidate into the residency in 2016. To date, Dr. Ganesan has mentored four physician-scientists, two of whom obtained KL2 career development awards, one of whom obtained an NIH K23 career development award, and another who is currently preparing their career development award application.

Along with the training program, Dr. Ganesan also created a non-ACGME fellowship to support physician-scientist training in the Department of Dermatology and is currently the primary investigator of a T32 training grant that has one dedicated slot for physician-scientists. Dr. Ganesan also has a successful track record of mentoring physician-scientists both at UCI and around the country. In addition, he currently serves as the chair of an NIH study section that specifically reviews physician-scientist career development awards.

Dr. Ganesan’s research focuses on understanding how melanocytes respond to environmental cues (UV irradiation, inflammation) in order to maintain normal homeostasis, and determining how this homeostasis is disrupted in diseases such as melanoma and vitiligo. His work spans from basic to clinical research as he recently discovered a new class of drugs to treat cancer and also manages clinical trials for patients with vitiligo.

Dr. Ganesan received his medical degree from the Medical College of Wisconsin. He then completed a residency in internal medicine at St. Mary Medical Center – Long Beach, as well as a residency in dermatology and a physician-scientist training program fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. He completed his doctoral studies in microbiology and molecular genetics at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Ganesan on this new appointment.​

Michael J. Stamos, MD
Dean, UCI School of Medicine

Click here to view the full message from Dean Michael Stamos.

Founder of UCI Beckman Laser Institute Dies

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Known for helping pioneer laser nanosurgery

By Kaitlin Aquino, Orange County Business Journal

UCI said biomedical laser researcher and professor Michael Berns, who founded the university’s Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic, died on Aug. 13. He was 79.

“He was way ahead of his time,” the current Beckman Laser Institute Director, Thomas Milner, said of Berns, adding that he was “creative, tenacious, complex and kind.”

Berns was known for his innovative work using “laser scissors and tweezers” to manipulate cells, university officials said. He was the first person to perform subcellular surgery on chromosomes and helped pioneer laser nanosurgery, according to SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. He eventually earned the nickname “the father of laser microbeams,” and received a gold medal from the organization for his work with lasers.

Berns joined the UCI department of developmental and cell biology in 1972, which he later chaired. Five years later, he won a National Institutes of Health grant to set up UCI’s Laser Microbeam Program, also known as LAMP, which eventually became the Beckman Laser Institute. In 1994, Berns received the UCI Medal, the school’s highest honor, according to university officials. He retired in 2020.

His scientific work was “highly impactful and did not slow throughout his career,” UCI surgery and biomedical engineering professor Elliot Botvinick, who worked with Berns during his postdoctoral research told the university. “His work has been cited over 26,000 times, spanning the fields of developmental biology, DNA repair, mechanobiology, the cytoskeleton, fertility, preservation of endangered species, and immunology, to just name a few.”

Read more on the Orange County Business Journal website.

Remembering Michael Berns

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Inspired by a ruby beam of light, the Beckman Laser Institute co-founder changed science, medicine – and UCI

by Roy Rivenburg, UCI | August 16, 2022

Biomedical laser pioneer Michael Berns, who co-founded and directed UCI’s storied Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic, died Saturday, Aug. 13. He was 79.

Renowned for his groundbreaking work using “laser scissors and tweezers” to manipulate cells, among other innovations, Berns was also a painter, avocado farmer and spy thriller novelist.

“He was way ahead of his time,” said the Beckman lab’s current director, Thomas Milner, who described Berns as “creative, tenacious, complex and kind.”

Born in December 1942 in Burlington, Vermont, Berns originally dreamed of being a veterinarian. He detoured into lasers while studying biology at Cornell University.

“It was 1966 and all I knew about lasers was that Goldfinger was going to slice James Bond in half,” he wrote for a conference presentation that was to be delivered later this month in San Diego. “Then one of my professors at Cornell told me that the department had purchased a small ruby laser but did not know what to do with it.”

Berns figured out an answer – and then some.

After finishing his Ph.D. in 1968, he became the first person to perform subcellular surgery of chromosomes, helped pioneer laser nanosurgery and eventually earned the nickname “the father of laser microbeams,” according to SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, which awarded Berns its gold medal this year for his lifetime achievements.

In 1972, after teaching zoology at the University of Michigan, he joined UCI’s Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, which he later chaired, and enchanted students. “His class was so much fun,” said Sari Mahon, who first studied under Berns in 1974 and now serves as assistant director of the Beckman Laser Institute. “He was an incredibly dedicated mentor and teacher.”

His signature accomplishment – the Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic – began taking shape in 1979, when Berns won an NIH grant to set up the Laser Microbeam Program, better known as LAMP, at UCI.

“After spending a year building the LAMP system — an instrument with a tunable wavelength laser microbeam and a wide range of energies and exposure durations — Berns sent out invitations to every CEO of medical and biotech companies in Orange County,” according to SPIE. “To his surprise, Arnold Beckman (then 80 years old and still running Beckman Instruments in Fullerton)” showed up at the lab on a rainy morning.

Beckman, an influential scientist and businessman whose 1934 invention of the pH meter launched his company, was transfixed by LAMP’s potential.

His subsequent investment in “a young professor, an unproven university, and an emerging technology” – as one history put it – led to the institute’s debut in 1986, with Berns as the lab’s founding director – and its heart and soul.

Even today, nearly two decades after Berns stepped down from running the center, it’s difficult to separate the man from the institute, Milner said.

The walls are decorated with his paintings and the building itself bears his imprint, said Elliot Botvinick, a UCI professor of surgery and biomedical engineering who did his postdoctoral work under Berns: “The architectural design speaks to Michael’s ability to look decades into the future. The building was one of just a few in the world combining a medical clinic with basic molecular biology, biophotonics and engineering, all along the same hallway. His vision was to have technologies invented in laboratories, matured and ultimately brought to the clinic. … Many of the technologies were commercialized.”

Scientists came from around the world for a residency at the institute, Botvinick added. And, in turn, Berns traveled the globe sharing his expertise.

On one trip, to the Soviet Union in 1979 to deliver lectures on laser biomedicine at Moscow State University, he was interrogated by KGB agents for 12 hours after being caught smuggling Jewish prayer books inside a false-bottomed suitcase. (He carried the contraband as a favor to student activists at UCI.) The incident later inspired a character in his 2021 spy novel, The Tinderbox Plot.

“As a longtime fan of thrillers, I imagined these interrogators reporting to a boss like Karla in John le Carré’s novel, Smiley’s People,” he recently wrote. “After the Jewish bible bust, I was never allowed to return to the Soviet Union, but my interest in the culture, politics and people in Russia never abated. Nor did my fascination with spy novels, and eventually, I decided to write one.”

But lasers remain his crowning legacy. Berns’ scientific achievements, which are too legion to catalog, were “highly impactful and did not slow throughout his career,” Botvinick noted. “His work has been cited over 26,000 times, spanning the fields of developmental biology, DNA repair, mechanobiology, the cytoskeleton, fertility, preservation of endangered species, and immunology, to just name a few.”

In 1994, he received the UCI Medal, the university’s highest honor.

Berns, who retired in 2020 as the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Professor at UCI (he also was an adjunct professor of bioengineering at UC San Diego), is survived by his son, Gregory, a dog psychology expert, M.D. and Distinguished Professor of neuroeconomics at Emory University; his daughter, Tammy Karn, an English professor at Mt. San Antonio College; and two granddaughters.

Read more on UCI News.

In Memoriam: Distinguished Professor Emeritus Michael Berns

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By Lori Brandt, UCI Samueli School of Engineering

Michael Berns, UC Irvine Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Surgery and Biomedical Engineering, died at his home in Irvine on Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022. The founding director of the UCI Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic served on the UCI faculty for nearly half a century.

Berns earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Cornell University in 1964 and 1968, respectively. He came to UCI from the University of Michigan in 1973. He served as chair of the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology within the School of Biological Sciences, and also held appointments in the School of Medicine and Samueli School of Engineering. Berns co-founded, with Arnold Beckman, the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic in 1982 and served as its director until 2003. He was the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Professor from 1988-2020. Berns also founded the first Laser Microbeam Program and the UCI Photonic Incubator.

According to biomedical engineering department Chair Zoran Nenadic, in an email to the department staff and faculty, “Although a cell biologist by training, Michael was keenly aware that modern biological discoveries would be increasingly reliant on technological solutions. When Dr. Arnold Beckman showed up at Michael’s lab on a rainy morning four decades ago, he was fascinated by Michael’s work on laser microscopy and immediately recognized its potential. His endowment led to the creation of the world-renowned Beckman Laser Institute.”

Berns was also instrumental in pursuing the formation of UCI’s BME department. “Since a great deal of his work was in engineering and there was no bioengineering department at UCI, Michael, together with Bruce Tromberg and Steve George, had a vision to create one,” wrote Nenadic. “In 1998, they applied to the Whitaker Foundation Development Award, which was responsible for seeding many bioengineering/biomedical engineering departments nationwide. While easily the least developed program at the time, this group of enthusiasts shocked the BME world by winning the award. Michael, who was the principal investigator on the proposal, and the research infrastructure that he had built at the BLI were instrumental in persuading the reviewers.”

Berns’ pioneering work focused on the use of laser technology in medical and biological research. He developed tools and techniques for the surgical use of lasers, down to the level of manipulating single cells and individual chromosomes. He published extensively on the use of lasers in both biomedical research and medical treatment of illnesses, including skin disorders, vascular disease, eye problems and cancer.

He was an elected fellow/member in numerous scientific and engineering societies, including the Royal Society of Biology of Great Britain, the Academy of the Royal Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery. Most recently, Berns was recognized by the International Society for Optics and Photonics with the 2022 SPIE Gold Medal. In 1994, he was awarded the UCI Medal – the highest award at UCI for outstanding career achievements.

His scientific achievements were numerous and impactful. His work has been cited over 26,000 times, spanning the fields of developmental biology, DNA repair, mechanobiology, the cytoskeleton, fertility, preservation of endangered species and immunology, to name just a few.

Berns mentored former BLI director and current National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering Director Bruce Tromberg, as well as several UCI professors, including Vasan Venugopalan, Elliot Botvinick and Daryl Preece. “He artfully blended strong leadership with kindness, care and generosity toward budding scientists of all ages,” said Nenadic. “He will be dearly missed.”

Said UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman, in a message to the campus community, “Michael Berns will be greatly missed by his friends and professional colleagues around the world. The entire university community joins me in sending condolences to his devoted children, Greg and Tammy.”

Read full article on the UCI Samueli School of Engineering website.

A message from Chancellor Howard Gillman

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It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of Distinguished Professor Emeritus Michael Berns, longtime faculty member and founding director of the UCI Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, at his home on Saturday, August 13, 2022.

Professor Berns earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Cornell University in 1964 and 1968, respectively. He came to UCI from the University of Michigan in 1973 as the chair of the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology within the School of Biological Sciences, and also held appointments in the School of Medicine and The Henry Samueli School of Engineering. Professor Berns co-founded, with Arnold Beckman, the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic in 1982 and served as its director until 2003. He also founded the first Laser Microbeam Program, the UCI Center for Biomedical Engineering, and the UCI Photonics Incubator. He was the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Professor from 1988-2020.

Professor Berns’s pioneering work focused on the use of laser technology in medical and biological research. He developed tools and techniques for the surgical use of lasers, down to the level of manipulating single cells and individual chromosomes. He published extensively on the use of lasers in both biomedical research and medical treatment of illnesses including skin disorders, vascular disease, eye problems, and cancer.

Professor Berns was an elected fellow/member in numerous scientific and engineering societies, including, the Royal Society of Biology of Great Britain, the Academy of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, the American Association for Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Society for Lasers in Medicine and Surgery. In 1994, he was awarded the UCI medal – the highest award at UCI for outstanding career achievements.

Michael Berns will be greatly missed by his friends and professional colleagues around the world. The entire university community joins me in sending condolences to his devoted children, Greg and Tammy.

chancellor.uci.edu

Remembering Michael W. Berns, Ph.D.

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UCI professor and esteemed colleague, Michael W. Berns, PhD, co-founder of the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, died Saturday, August 13 at the age of 79.

Dr. Berns was an assistant professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He then joined UCI as the chairman of the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology in 1976 and was a distinguished professor in the UCI Schools of Medicine, Engineering and Biological Sciences.

During his tenure at UCI, Dr. Berns was also named the Arnold and Mabel Beckman endowed Professor. Together with Arnold Beckman, he founded the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic in 1982 and served as the director until 2003.

“Michael truly authored the DNA of the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, and all the inner workings of the Institute stemmed from his creative genius and tenacious spirit, said Thomas E. Milner, PhD, director of the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic. “He placed a high value on loyalty and that principle has been the ‘glue’ that has maintained the Beckman Laser Institute family atmosphere for nearly forty years, making the institute a pleasant, friendly, stimulating and creative work environment.”

In addition to the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, Dr. Berns was also the founding director of the UCI Center for Biomedical Engineering, and founded the UCI Photonics Incubator in 1999.

His research interests included laser tissue interactions, laser microbeam studies on cell structure/function, photonics-based biomedical instrumentation, ophthalmology, oncology and fertility.

Through his research, Dr. Berns endeavored to solve numerous biomedical problems through the application of lasers and other photonics devices.  His laboratory focused on how the body’s cells and tissues respond to light at the subcellular, cellular and tissue levels. In 1994, he was awarded the UCI medal – the highest award at UCI for outstanding career achievements.

As a teacher and mentor at UCI, Dr. Berns was an advocate for his mentees both in and out of the classroom. He continually provided learning experiences for his students and encouraged each to attend and present at major meetings and author publications. He also provided networks of potential contacts for career growth long after leaving his laboratory.

Dr. Berns was an elected fellow/member in numerous scientific and engineering societies including, the Royal Society of Biology of Great Britain, the Academy of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, the American Association for Advancement of Science, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Society for Lasers in Medicine and Surgery amongst others.

He earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology from Cornell University, and completed postdoctoral studies at the Pasadena Foundation for Medical Research.

He will be greatly missed by family, friends and his professional colleagues.

Read more on the UCI School of Medicine website.

Photon scissors and tweezers: A cell surgeon’s story

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Known as “the father of laser microbeams,” Michael Berns has followed a path guided by mentors

By Karen Thomas, The International Society for Optics and Photonics

Editor’s note: On Saturday, 13 August 2022, a few days after this article was published, Michael Berns passed away at the age of 79. He will be greatly missed by family, friends, and colleagues.

“It was 1966 and all I knew about lasers was that Goldfinger was going to slice James Bond in half,” says SPIE Fellow and consummate storyteller Michael Berns of his initial introduction to lasers. “Then one of my professors at Cornell told me that the department had purchased a small ruby laser but did not know what to do with it, and he felt it might be useful for very fine tissue ablation if coupled to a microscope.”

A professor of biomedical engineering, surgery, and developmental and cell biology at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), and cofounder and founding director of the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic (BLIMC), Berns is also this year’s recipient of the SPIE Gold Medal in recognition of his work in bioengineering research and his distinguished career that has brought together engineers, physicists, biologists, and physicians to collaborate on groundbreaking discoveries and innovations.

Today, Berns is widely known as the “the father of laser microbeams” thanks, in part, to his groundbreaking work in delineating how the laser can perform subcellular surgery on chromosomes. With a focus on light interactions with cells and tissues, his research works to address biomedical problems such as nervous-system repair at the single-cell level, a laser-leveraging technique that extends to degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Huntington’s.

Those who lit the path

Throughout a lifetime of accomplishments that include scientific firsts, philanthropy, painting, and authoring international spy thrillers, Berns notes the mentors his had along his journey.

Perhaps the first in his life was his grandfather, an inventor who raised Berns on Long Island, New York. Described as a “very gentle, kind man,” Bern’s grandfather had come from “the old country” at age 14, and the family never knew more than that about his past.

“He became a clothing designer for Treo, a New York clothing company, and had a wall with all his patents,” says Berns. “The one that always stuck with me was the “stretch girdle” that resembled an American Flag. He liked to tell the story of being sued by the DAR [Daughters of the American Revolution] for desecration of the American flag. They were all pulled off the market and distributed as mementos to our extended family.” Berns has one of the samples on a bright metal mannequin on display in his home, along with several of his grandfather’s patents. “The design for that girdle ended up as part of an exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC as an example of 1960s pop art.”

“My grandpa was a real tinkerer with gadgets and that is where I first honed my technical skills,” Berns adds. “Whenever some new technology came out, he was interested. We went up on the roof of our apartment building with a pair of binoculars to see the Russian Sputnik fly over.” The satellite itself was barely apparent, but its R-7 core stage was visible as a bright light moving across the sky.

Changing course

As noted earlier, Berns discovered lasers as a graduate student at Cornell University in the rarely 1960s. One of the first among his fellow students to experiment with lasers, he used a ruby laser as a micro-surgical device to study the development and evolution of the leg-building region of a millipede. “Actually, it was a complete failure,” notes Berns. “But the lesson for me was that just because something didn’t work in one type of experiment, that didn’t mean it wasn’t useful for something else.”

After finishing his PhD at Cornell, he headed out to Pasadena, California, to use lasers to manipulate single cells. “I was fortunate to have a postdoc mentor in Donald Rounds who basically said, ‘There’s the lab, have fun.’ And I did.”

Part of the fun included becoming the first to perform subcellular surgery of chromosomes (Nature, 1969), followed by a 1970 Scientific American article, “Cell Surgery by Laser.” He was first to perform laser nanosurgery in a cell with the goal of cell survival and subsequent cloning, and he introduced the use of real-time digital image processing in biology, widely used in microscopy (Science, 1981).

Berns credits the Nature and Scientific American articles with helping him land his first academic job as an assistant professor in the department of zoology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He had always loved animals so his career goal since childhood was to become a veterinarian. But as seems to be a theme in his life, he got sidetracked by another influential mentor.

“It was my high school biology teacher, Robert Abrams, who asked me if I would help him measure tumors on mice after school at a research lab on Long Island,” says Berns. “He’s really the one who first introduced me to laboratory research and the scientific method. I read my first Scientific American magazine as part of his advanced biology class and decided that my goal was to someday write an article for that magazine.”

As a postdoc and professor, Berns wasn’t really interested in the clinical or medical uses of lasers, but he took notice that at key conferences the utility of lasers was often being discussed. “At some point I realized that getting big grants was more likely if I was investigating laser use for a disease,” says Berns. “This led me to cancer and the use of light-activated dyes for the diagnosis and treatment of human and animal cancers — like in pet dogs, cats, and snakes.”

Lighting the LAMP

In 1979, Berns was awarded a prestigious NIH Biotechnology Resource grant to establish what he called the LAser Microbeam Program (LAMP), a laboratory for laser microscopy using sophisticated continuous-wave (CW) and short-pulsed picosecond lasers.

After spending a year building the LAMP system — an instrument with a tunable wavelength laser microbeam and a wide range of energies and exposure durations — Berns sent out invitations to every CEO of medical and biotech companies in Orange County, California. To his surprise, Arnold Beckman (then 80 years old and still running Beckman Instruments in Fullerton, California), came through his door.

“He was fascinated with lasers and how I was focusing them inside of cells to perform sub-cellular surgery, says Berns. “This started a friendship that continued until he passed away at the age of 104. After a year or so, I proposed that he support the construction of the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, a facility where basic scientists and clinicians would rub shoulders in the same building.”

The institute and clinic became the first interdisciplinary program that combined engineers, physicists, biologists, and physicians under the same roof, leading to intense interactions that resulted in over 52 inventions, including biomedical devices now used worldwide.

Giving back

Currently, Berns is leading two research projects: one funded by the BLIMC non-profit corporation to develop an internet-based robotic laser scissors-tweezers microscope (RoboLase), and a second on nervous system repair following laser damage, funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. But he’s also involved in community and philanthropic activities, becoming an influential mentor just as the mentors in his life did for him. While director of UCI’s BLIMC, Berns garnered more than $63 million in extramural grants and $40 million in philanthropic support.

Berns has served on the editorial board of SPIE’s Journal of Biomedical Optics (JBO) for more than ten years. During this time, he has promoted the journal to the wider scientific community, encouraging them to publish their work in it and making JBO an essential go-to journal for new and interesting results in biomedical optics. He has chaired a session at the SPIE Conference on Optical Trapping and Optical Micromanipulation at SPIE Optics + Photonics for the past 14 years, giving numerous keynote and invited talks.

“I have always been involved with community activities,” says Berns. “While raising our kids in Orange County, I was on the Planning Commission of San Juan Capistrano, and now I’m trying to motivate our university community to get behind our ecological preserve by offering to match any gifts. I have been fortunate to have had personal relationships with such pillars of our society as Arnold Beckman and David Packard. I learned from them that giving back to the society that made our careers successful is uniquely rewarding.”

He adds that “extending the use of optical technologies to high-school students is very rewarding especially when their eyes light up in amazement. It reminds me of my own high-school experience with my biology teacher, Mr. Abrams.”

Portions of this article were originally published in the 2022 Photonics West Show Daily.

Read more on the The International Society for Optics and Photonics website.

Video Dating App Claims Grand Prize in Merage School Competition

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Noveil seeks to eliminate the superficial nature of most popular dating apps.

Using common dating apps can often feel shallow and risky, but a business created by a UC Irvine student seeks to eliminate those hurdles and provide an application that fosters lasting relationships.

That business, Noveil, recently won a $20,000 grand prize and $10,000 Consumer Services first prize in the Stella Zhang New Venture Competition, which is hosted annually by the Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at The Paul Merage School of Business to encourage entrepreneurship and support student startups in the Orange County area.

Michael Allotey, a 2021 UC Irvine graduate who major majored in computer science and minored in innovation and entrepreneurship, started Noveil started Noveil specifically for Generation Z college students.

“We understood the problem because we experienced it ourselves,” Allotey said of the Noveil team. “We noticed there noticed there was a hookup culture that you can’t get around in online dating. There was a superficiality. People only judged each other on a picture and then a few sentences in a bio. Also, women don’t really feel that comfortable. To us, that’s crazy.”

Noveil seeks to solve these problems by removing photos and a bio and adding a video dating platform so people can really get to know each other before going on a date.

When somebody signs up for Noveil, they will be asked three questions to determine their preferences and whether they want to start dating. From that point, the app’s algorithm uses machine learning to find a good match for each person. Initially, these matches are based on preferences, but after going on a few dates, the app will base its matches on who somebody has chosen to date and who they have disliked in the past.

“It’s similar to how Netflix recommends movies,” Allotey said. When two people are matched, they are immediately placed in a three-minute video call. The app provides two icebreaker questions to stimulate the conversation.

Allotey started Noveil in November and enrolled in the Stella Zhang New Venture Competition a few months later. He said he had been interested in competing in the event for a while.

This year’s event gave nearly $100,000 in prize money to a variety of businesses dealing with sustainability, medical technology and diet. Over the course of seven months, 88 teams were whittled down to 10 during this year’s competition. These finalists competed in an event run similarly to an episode of “Shark Tank” where contestants pitch their products and services to a panel of judges made up of Orange County entrepreneurs and investors.

Aside from Noveil, several other businesses received cash prizes for a variety of categories, including business products and services, consumer products, consumer services, life sciences and social enterprise. First place winners were given $10,000 and second place received $5,000. A grand prize runner up was also chosen and awarded $5,000.

Grand Prize Runner Up

Enjovu Paper was chosen as the runner up for its proposal to use regenerated fibers from elephant feces to create sustainable paper products. The company argued that this will lessen the environmental impact of paper production and raise awareness for endangered elephants, which are threatened by poaching, human-wildlife conflict and habitat destruction.

Life Sciences

The first prize was claimed by forMED Technologies for its mission to provide patients with an at-home eye pressure monitoring system to prevent blindness and make sure that patients are receiving the correct amount of medication. Sayenza Biosciences received the second place prize for developing the first fully automated device that processes fat removed during liposuction. This is crucial because the cells in liposuction fat have a high amount of adult stem cells, which can be used for regenerative medicine.

Business Products and Services

Nutripair was awarded the first place prize for its product pairing people with the most nutritious and beneficial foods for their dietary preferences. The company also helps restaurants raise their revenue through helping manage the menu and analyzing allergens and nutrition. EmpowerMi came in second place for its mental wellness platform that provides a more holistic approach to mental health maintenance.

Consumer Products

HAI came in first place for offering sustainable and fashionable jewelry. GaleGauge took the second place prize for its golf training tool utilizing data on wind, temperature and distance to help people adjust their swing.

Social Enterprise

Blue Aqua Food Tech received the first place award for using insects to create an alternative protein for fish to feed on to help solve the global crisis of fishmeal shortages. Enjovu Paper also was awarded second place honors in this category. Com

Consumer Services

Noveil also received the first place prize in this category, while SnapHealth came in second place for its mobile app that helps patients take back control of their sensitive health data to improve the overall experience of healthcare.

For more information about The Paul Merage School of Business and our programs, please visit merage.uci.edu.

Click here to read the full Orange County Business Journal article.

NIH Recognizes UCI Researchers’ Hemodynamic Monitoring Smart Sock to Improve Maternal Health

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­By Lori Brandt, UCI Samueli School of Engineering

A UC Irvine team of biomedical engineering and medicine researchers won second place and a $300,000 cash prize from the National Institutes of Health for their innovation of a sock equipped with a hemodynamic monitoring system for pregnant women.

The team had entered the maternal obstetrics monitoring sock (MOMS) in the NIH Technology Accelerator Challenge (NTAC) for Maternal Health. According to the NIH, pregnancy and childbirth complications are a major global health problem and result in the deaths of more than 800 women and 7,000 newborns each day. Low-cost diagnostics that operate at the point-of-care and can detect and differentiate among common conditions associated with pregnancy are needed to help reduce the high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality in low-resource settings. In addition, Black women are three times as likely to die from maternal complications than white women. The NTAC recently awarded $1 million in prizes for the successful design and development of diagnostic tests and platform technologies to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality.

Biomedical engineering professors Bernard Choi and Michelle Khine and school of medicine professors Drs. Judith Chung and Rami Khayat collaborated on the development of the low-cost, portable, point-of-care system to monitor pregnant women for preeclampsia, anemia and hemorrhage. The sock can be used during and after delivery in low-resource settings to continuously track blood pressure and heart rate and monitor blood flow.

The smart sock works by integrating the soft beat-to-beat blood pressure sensor that Khine has been developing in her lab with the photonic anemia and hemorrhage sensor that Choi’s lab has been working on. The health data is wirelessly transmitted to a smartphone, which can alert patients if their heart rate, blood pressure, hemoglobin levels or tissue oxygenation saturation levels are abnormal. Unlike similar commercially available pulse oximetry devices, this technology is not significantly affected by skin pigmentation or motion artifacts. The entire system can be manufactured for under $100, enabling an easily deployable, scalable solution.

“I am so excited to integrate our technologies so that we can comprehensively monitor expectant mothers,” said Khine. “I feel truly lucky to be here at UC Irvine, to be able to work closely with such incredible collaborators to further develop and clinically validate this smart sock. Because our respective technologies have been shown to be so accurate and are both extremely low cost, I am really optimistic that combining them into this sock could be a real game changer for maternal health.”

The maternal health diagnostics challenge is managed by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and with support from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health.

Read full article on the UCI Samueli School of Engineering website.

NIH announces prize winners of maternal health diagnostics challenge

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The National Institutes of Health today announced the winners of its NIH Technology Accelerator Challenge (NTAC) for Maternal Health, a prize competition for developers of diagnostic technologies to help improve maternal health around the world. Pregnancy and childbirth complications are a major global health problem. Tragically, these complications result in the deaths of more than 800 women and 7,000 newborns each day. Low-cost diagnostics that operate at the point-of-care and can detect and differentiate among common conditions associated with pregnancy are needed to help reduce the high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality in low-resource settings.

The winning technologies share a total of $1 million in prizes for the successful design and development of diagnostic tests and platform technologies to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality. The prize competition is managed by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and with support from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health.

“This competition prioritized technologies that could have life-saving impact on women, families, and communities, and provide health care workers with technologies they can readily integrate into practice with their patients,” said NIBIB Director Bruce J. Tromberg, Ph.D. “We congratulate the teams who entered this field of competition with their innovative device designs and platform technologies, as well as articulating a pathway for translation and use of their innovations for global health settings.”

Priority maternal health conditions addressed in NTAC for Maternal Health include infection, hypertensive disease, hemorrhage and placental issues. Hemorrhage, pre-eclampsia and bacterial infections account for more than 50% of global maternal mortality, with 94% of these fatalities occurring in low- and lower middle-income countries.

The NTAC for Maternal Health drew over 40 entries, five of which were selected to receive cash prizes, while an additional four entries received honorable mention awards.  Each of the cash prize winners will be invited to present a summary of their diagnostic technologies at a livestreamed winner’s showcase from 2-3:30 p.m. on Thurs., August 4, 2022. Preregister here up to an hour before the event.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will separately review winners and those receiving an honorable mention and consider them for follow-on support that may include grant funding and/or in-kind support in the form of consultations and partnerships for clinical data collection, software development, scale-up and manufacturing. Read more about the NTAC for Maternal Health program.

The winning technologies are as follows:

First place and a $500,000 prize. Dr. Bethany Hedt-Gauthier, Harvard University, Boston. mHealth tools for community health worker-led home-based diagnosis of surgical site infections and anemia post-cesarian delivery. A stand-alone, integrated mobile health tool for community health workers to monitor postpartum recovery by women following a cesarian delivery. The tool enables home-based diagnosis of surgical-site infections and anemia. The team designed the technology to be used in rural Rwanda; its use could be transferred to low infrastructure and resource settings in other countries.

Second place and a $300,000 prize. University of California, Irvine. Maternal obstetrics monitoring sock (MOMS). The hemodynamic monitoring sock is a low-cost, portable, point-of-care system to monitor pregnant women for preeclampsia, anemia, and hemorrhage. It continuously tracks blood pressure and heart rate and monitors blood flow; it can be used during and after delivery in low-resource settings.

Third place tie and a $75,000 prize. Softsonics, LLC, San Diego. A wearable ultrasound/electrochemical sensor for maternal health surveillance. A conformal, stretchable and integrated wearable sensor providing dynamic and comprehensive monitoring of pregnancy complications, including sepsis, preeclampsia, and placental disfunction. The sensor can monitor blood pressure, heart rate and lactate levels and can facilitate Doppler ultrasound imaging. The technology does not require a trained operator, enabling its use in low-resource settings.

Third place tie and a $75,000 prize. Raydiant Oximetry, Inc., San Francisco. LUMERAH™ near infrared spectroscopy platform to diagnose maternal hemorrhage and fetal distress during pregnancy. The LUMERAH™ system is a non-invasive platform technology that uses near-infrared spectroscopy to perform non-invasive pulse oximetry. The device is being developed for the diagnosis of fetal hypoxic distress during labor and delivery and maternal hemorrhage in the postpartum period. These conditions impact mothers across the developed and developing world.

Semi-finalist and a $50,000 prize. Stanford University, Stanford, California. Point-of-care diagnostics tool for preeclampsia and anemia in pregnancy. A fully integrated molecular diagnostic system on a miniaturized, disposable semiconductor chip to enable simple, low-cost, and early detection of preeclampsia and maternal anemia at the point-of-care. The technology will identify high-risk pregnancies and enable their close monitoring and early intervention and be, suitable for use in both high-income and low- and middle-income countries.

Honorable mention. VoluMetrix, LLC, Nashvllle. Non-invasive venous waveform analysis (NIVA) for maternal health. An accurate, easy to use, non-invasive wrist sensor to monitor key physiological variables by capturing low frequency venous waveforms. It is being developed to provide hemorrhage monitoring, early detection of pre-eclampsia and monitoring for acute respiratory distress. Ease-of-use and portability enable a healthcare provider to monitor a patient in the hospital or at home during the peripartum period and during delivery.

Honorable mention. Dr. Mathias Wipf, MOMM Diagnostics, Basel, Switzerland. Rapid Preeclampsia Diagnostic Test (RaPiD). A cost-effective method to rule-out or diagnose preeclampsia at the point-of-care via a simple-to-use blood test. This proof-of-concept prototype for a rapid diagnostic test for preeclampsia determines the concentration ratio between two preeclampsia biomarkers from a single drop of blood. It offers a low-cost solution for immediate and continuous patient monitoring during pregnancy check-ups.

Honorable mention. Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. Modifying maternal recumbent position to prevent preeclampsia and placental disease. The automated supine pressor test (Auto-SPT) is an adaptation of the supine pressor test used to predict the risk for preeclampsia in pregnant women based on elevation in their diastolic blood pressure when shifting from their left side to their back. Auto-SPT uses a standard brachial blood pressure cuff, smartphone, and position sensor to guide patients through the test. Auto-SPT is primarily designed to be used at home for preeclampsia risk prediction or therapeutic positioning to reduce placental disease.

Honorable mention. Washington University in St. Louis. Maternal aRMOR: Preventing global maternal mortality and morbidity with a wearable device. A low-cost wearable device that provides real-time data to inform early clinical decision making for hemorrhage and preeclampsia in high- and low-resource settings. The Maternal aRMOR uses a low-powered laser and light sensor to monitor physiologic changes that can be used to diagnose hemorrhage and preeclampsia. The device, which can be worn throughout pregnancy, labor, and postpartum recovery, interfaces with a mobile phone or tablet, providing actionable results in minutes.

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About the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB): NIBIB’s mission is to improve health by leading the development and accelerating the application of biomedical technologies. The Institute is committed to integrating engineering and physical science with biology and medicine to advance our understanding of disease and its prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment. NIBIB supports emerging technology research and development within its internal laboratories and through grants, collaborations, and training. More information is available at the NIBIB website.

About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD): NICHD leads research and training to understand human development, improve reproductive health, enhance the lives of children and adolescents, and optimize abilities for all. For more information, visit https://www.nichd.nih.gov.

About the Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH): ORWH serves as the focal point for women’s health research at NIH. It is the first Public Health Service office dedicated specifically to promoting women’s health research within, as well as beyond, the NIH scientific community. The office also fosters the recruitment, retention, reentry, and advancement of women in biomedical careers. For more information about ORWH, visit www.nih.gov/women

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): The National Institutes of Health, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit the NIH website.

Click here to read the full press release on the NIBIB website.