DoM Annual Research Day 2023

Nov 17, 2023

Research Day is an annual event showcasing research, creativity, and innovation across academic disciplines in the Department of Medicine at UCLA. It highlights the prestigious research and creative work conducted by our faculty, trainees, students, and staff. Research Day celebrates academic excellence by giving the campus community the opportunity to come together and exchange scholarly activities, share new ideas, and allow for engagement among peers. The program will feature a plenary session, poster session, and breakout poster discussion sessions in Basic Research, Health Services Research and Clinical Translational Research.

2023 Caltech/UCLA Joint NIH Symposium

Sep 21, 2023

UCLA and Caltech jointly hosted the NIH Joint Meeting on September 21st at the Annenberg Building at Caltech. The purpose of this symposium was to facilitate collaboration and communication between institutions, with a focus on training the next generation of diverse biomedical engineers and scientists to bridge engineering and medicine. Both the senior T32 scholars and mentors delivered the oral presentations. A senior T32 shared his experience in NIH K99 application, and another her experience as a scientific leader in a start-up funded by the Caltech professor. Other T32 scholars presented the posters to connect with the faculty. Both the up-and-comping and senior faculty were engaging with the T32 scholars to discuss research and career development. The next Caltech/UCLA symposium will be held at UCLA in collaboration with the AHA iDIVERSE Center in Spring 2024.

Gordon Research Conferences – 2023 Biomechanics in Vascular Biology and Disease

Jun 20, 2023

About the conference: The Biomechanics in Vascular Biology and Disease GRC is a premier, international scientific conference focused on advancing the frontiers of science through the presentation of cutting-edge and unpublished research, prioritizing time for discussion after each talk and fostering informal interactions among scientists of all career stages. The conference program includes a diverse range of speakers and discussion leaders from institutions and organizations worldwide, concentrating on the latest developments in the field. The conference is five days long and held in a remote location to increase the sense of camaraderie and create scientific communities, with lasting collaborations and friendships. In addition to premier talks, the conference has designated time for poster sessions from individuals of all career stages, and afternoon free time and communal meals allow for informal networking opportunities with leaders in the field.

This GRC will bring together engineers, biologists, and clinicians who study biomechanics in cardiovascular biology and disease. This GRC meeting will significantly broaden and consolidate smaller scale symposium activities in Biomechanics and Cardiovascular Disease that our biomechanics community has held in Europe and North America since 2005. Leaders and diverse groups representing women and underrepresented investigators, from trainees to young and established faculty members, will have opportunities to present and network at the Meeting. Speakers for the Early-Career Investigators Session will be selected from submitted abstracts. In addition, poster sessions will be led by the leaders to feature “Meet the Young Investigators” to facilitate networking. To promote inclusion and diversity and to address the challenges facing women and underrepresented groups in STEM, the GRC Power Hour Session will be led by our rising leader, Dr. Eno Ebong, who will lead the forum.

Date: August 6 – 11, 2023

Location: Mount Holyoke College, 50 College Street, South Hadley, MA, United States

For more information, please check this website: https://www.grc.org/biomechanics-in-vascular-biology-and-disease-conference/2023/

2023 National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering’s 2023 Training Grantees Meeting (TGM)

May 10, 2023

The organizers welcome your attendance at the 2023 National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering’s 2023 Training Grantees Meeting (TGM) in June. Please see below for more information for registration.

ARRIVING ON THE NIH CAMPUS | The meeting will take place in the William H. Natcher Conference Center (Building 45) on the NIH Campus located at 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland.

As you plan for your travel and arrival time, please remember it can take up to 45 minutes to pass through NIH Security at the Gateway Center. More information on the NIH Security processcan be found here.

Transportation details are available here on the meeting website.  

FOOD & BEVERAGE | Lunch is only available via pre-order through Fresh Fork. If you have not placed your order, please click here to do so by June 9. All pre-ordered lunches will be delivered to Natcher and available outside the Auditorium when the program breaks for lunch.

ABSTRACTS | Please submit your abstract here no later than May 15, 2023.If your abstract is accepted for poster presentation, you will be notified by the meeting organizers.More information on the poster presentations can be found here. The poster size is 4 by 6 feet.

HOTEL RESERVATIONS | We have arranged reduced room rates at 3 Bethesda hotels, in keeping with government per diem requirements.Please make your hotel reservation by May 15 at one of the hotels listed here on the registration website.

Please take a moment to fill out this form. We appreciate your feedback!

2023 T32 Symposium

Apr 17, 2023

On April 17th, UCLA and CalTech put on the AHA iDIVERSE & NIH T32 Joint Symposium on “Translating Interdisciplinary Research to Ameliorate Cardiometabolic Disorders.” We heard from esteemed speakers who shared cutting-edge research on cardiovascular disease mechanisms and innovative engineering solutions for managing cardiometabolic risk factors. The poster presentations by the NIH iTEAM T32 scholars were inspiring, showcasing their novel research findings at the intersection of diversity, engineering, and medicine. The symposium provided a unique platform for networking, collaboration, and knowledge sharing among experts in the field. The Q&A sessions, discussions, and interactions were invaluable, fostering interdisciplinary connections and potential collaborations. Thank you to the American Heart Association (AHA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for their support and shoutout to our amazing team who worked hard to put on this event. We are grateful to all the attendees for their active participation and contribution to the success of the symposium.

AHA iDIVERSE & NIH T32 Joint Symposium

Translating Interdisciplinary Research to Ameliorate Cardiometabolic Disorders

2022 T32 Symposium

Sep 12, 2022

UCLA Bioengineering hosted the annual meeting for the UCLA/Caltech Integrated Cardiometabolic Medicine for Bioengineers (iCMB) training program on Monday September 12th in Mong Auditorium. The meeting featured invited speakers from engineering, medicine, and computer science, a poster session highlighting trainee research contributions, and a networking lunch for fostering collaborations.
The iCMB was funded in 2020 with the goal of providing a 2-year, structured curriculum for training post-doctoral engineers and biophysical or biomedical scientists to prepare them for leadership roles in academia and industry. The goal of this T32 program is to strengthen individualized training in 1) advanced sensing or 2) imaging coupled with machine learning usually in the context of addressing metabolic disease with an understanding of how to improve access to quality of care. The UCLA/Caltech iCMB program employs a co-mentorship model, and each post-doctoral scholar will have a primary mentor from cardiometabolic disease and a co-mentor from enabling technologies and/or industry.
The guest speakers covered pertinent topics to engineering and cardiovascular health including Precision Nutrition (Zhaoping Li, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine Director, Center for Human Nutrition and Obesity, Chief, Clinical Nutrition), the Amazon Science Hub for collaboration (Jens Palsberg, PhD, Professor of Computer Science, Director of UCLA-Amazon Science Hub on AI and humanism), the integration of Cryo-EM imaging and bioinformatics for understanding metabolism (Hong Zhou, PhD, Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, & Molecular Genetics, Director, Electron Imaging Center for NanoMachines (EICN)), and the integration of wearables in clinical trials (Michael Ong, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine, Health Services Research). The schedule also featured outstanding researchers from UCLA Bioengineering including Dr. Jaimie Stewart (in-coming faculty in 2023, building programmable RNA structures), and Dr. Jun Chen (Assistant Professor, head of the Wearable Electronics Lab).
This year’s annual meeting featured 7 postdoctoral scholars with co-mentorships across multiple subject areas:
  1. Elham Davoodi, MSc, PhD
    Mentor: Wei Gao, PhD, Division of Engineering and Applied Science, Caltech
    Co-Mentor: Zhaoping Li, Division of Human Nutrition, Department of Medicine, UCLA
  2. Ryan McGuan, PhD
    Primary Mentor: Chang-Jin Kim, PhD, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Bioengineering, UCLA
    Co-mentor: R. Michael van Dam, PhD, Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology
  3. Behnam Sadri, PhD
    Mentor: Wei Gao, PhD, Division of Engineering and Applied Science, Caltech
    Co-Mentor: Tzung Hsiai, Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, UCLA
  4. Adrian Arrieta, MS, PhD
    Mentor: Thomas M. Vondriska, PhD, Department of Anesthesiology, Medicine and Physiology, UCLA
  5. Ellen O’Connor, PhD
    Primary Mentor: Srinivasa Reddy, PhD, Department of Medicine, UCLA
    Co-Mentor: Jennifer Wilson, PhD, Department of Bioengineering, UCLA
  6. Yujun Liu, PhD
    Mentor: Z. Hong Zhou, PhD, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, UCLA
    Co-Mentor: Tzung Hsiai, Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, UCLA
  7. Danial Shahraki, PhD
    Mentor: Chiara Daraio, PhD, Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering and Applied Physics, Caltech
2021 T32 Symposium

Sep 22, 2021

The first in-person meeting of the T32 program, which included all trainees and PIs. Held at UCLA

Virtual Field Trip

May 07, 2021

Hsiai lab members, along with Center X, met virtually with high school students to 1) give them a virtual tour of the lab and 2) host a Q&A session

Virtual Field Trip

Feb 18, 2021

Hsiai lab members, along with Center X, met virtually with students from Hamilton High School to 1)discuss COVID and the vaccine and 2)give students a virtual tour of the lab and host a Q&A session

UCLA Outreach Field Trip

Jan 27, 2019

40 students from Savanah High School came to UCLA to 1)meet with undergraduates about college life/classes/etc 2) visit labs and speak with PIs and 3) work with engineering undergrads on a seismic engineering activity that tested their earthquake-proof design skills