Current Research Teams
Research teams recruit new members on a rolling, as needed basis. Join our mailing list to receive the recruitment emails.
Real Vegan Cheese
The Real Vegan Cheese project is exploring the potential of using yeast expression systems to produce vegan-cheese and related proteins. Their project involves DNA cloning, protein expression, bacterial/yeast culturing and transformation.
To learn more, reach out to Allison Muller at allmuller@ucdavis.edu or Kenta Hsu at kjhsu@ucdavis.edu
Microfluidics
Microfluidics is the science of manipulating tiny quantities of fluids — think microliters and nanoliters. The team is using these technologies to make a single cell capture and culture device for mammalian cells.
To learn more, reach out to Veda Nayak at vnayak@ucdavis.edu.
ALGene
The ALGene project aims to genetically modify Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a strain of single-cell green algae, to produce insulin and/or other pharmaceutical-relevant proteins in a cost-effective and sustainable manner.
To learn more, reach out to Caleb Humphrey (cchumphrey@ucdavis.edu), Michelle Azuma (mkazuma@ucdavis.edu), or Daniel Yang (dnlyang@ucdavis.edu).
Past Research Teams
iGEM
iGEM is short for International Genetically Engineered Machine (See why we call it iGEM?). This is an international competition that happens each year. A group of highly motivated students engage in a summer-long research sprint before presenting their work at the annual iGEM competition. We currently do not have an iGEM team but may be able to help facilitate a group of students who are interested in participating in this competition.
For more information please contact: Tanya Chettri
3D Organic Polymer Silk (3D-OPS)
This team of BIG researchers worked to use spider silk in a variety of medical applications.
3D-OPS is now a company - find more information about them here.
Bioprinter
A bioprinter is a device that can print biological materials (hydrogels, cells suspended in different matrices) in three dimensions. This team of BIG researchers worked to create affordable bioprinting technologies by converting a FDM printer system into one that would print bacterial and mammlian cells embedded in an agarose based hydrogel.
ELISA Optimization
Through a collaboration with HM Clause, this team was developing a better workflow for detecting plant disease using ELISA.