University of Florida researchers have found a new use for “genetic scissors” to detect RNA, a discovery that could lead to faster, more accurate and less expensive diagnostic tests for a host of diseases.
AI helps create better, simpler hepatitis, COVID-19 tests
Going beyond pregnancy and COVID-19, the world could someday soon come to rely on at-home tests for many diseases thanks in part to AI-fueled improvements. UF scientists have used artificial intelligence tools to simplify a test that works for both hepatitis C and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The simplified test happens in one small test tube in just a few minutes. With further refinement, it could arrive at doctor’s offices soon and, one day, become available as home tests that are as easy as a pregnancy test.
AAAS honors 19 UF, 5 college faculty as lifetime fellows
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals, has elected 19 faculty from the University of Florida, including 5 from Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, to its newest class, breaking previous records for the number of faculty awarded in a single year.
Redefining Who Can Be an Astronaut
A new Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering graduate is on a mission to break barriers to space travel for people with disabilities.
Three ChE Assistant Professors Receive the NIH Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award
Each researcher was awarded a five-year, $1.8+ million award. MIRA awards provide investigators with greater stability and flexibility in funding, while enhancing their ability to take on ambitious scientific projects and approach problems more creatively.
Engineering the Hi-Fi Brain
Through a $4.5 million award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), two researchers in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering are working to advance the therapeutic intervention known as “neuromodulation,” fine-tuning electronic stimulation inside the body by creating next-generation electrodes that will deliver the equivalent of high fidelity for the central nervous system.
32 Faculty Awarded Term Professorships
The University Term Professorship was established in 2016 and is presented to 250 eligible faculty members annually. Selection of the professorships is based on an assessment of academic accomplishment by either a faculty advisory committee and/or the department chair and approved by the dean of the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering.
UF Researchers Help Develop Highly Accurate, 30-Second Coronavirus Test
Researchers at the University of Florida, including Fan Ren, Ph.D., a distinguished professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, have helped develop a COVID-19 testing device that can detect coronavirus infection in as little as 30 seconds as sensitively and accurately as a PCR.
Researchers Develop a Test to Quickly Detect COVID Variants
University of Florida researchers have invented a test that can determine within 10-15 minutes whether patients test positive for COVID and, if so, which of the five known variants of concern they have.
Faster, Cheaper, Easier COVID-19 Testing
UF engineers reach semi-finals in XPRIZE Contest for new COVID-19 test methods; their CRISPR-ENHANCE methodology published in Nature Communications journal