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ICB Investigator and UCSB Garland Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials, H. Tom Soh was elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), for significant contributions to the medical and biological engineering community.

Kimberly Turner, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UCSB, has been elected fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for her major contributions in the area of micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS), micromachines that function largely as sensors or devices that convert one form of energy to another.

Jacob Israelachvili, ICB project leader and professor of chemical engineering and materials at UC Santa Barbara, has been awarded the Tribology Gold Medal by the Institute for Mechanical Engineers for his contributions to the understanding of molecular origins and tribological processes.

U.S. Army experts along with leading university professors and industry partners have been collaborating over the last decade to explore biological systems that have the potential to drive sweeping bio-technological advances for U.S. Soldiers. The research is led by UCSB at the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (ICB), a University Affiliated Research Center (UARC), in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

To address health issues related to head injuries — which may not appear until long after a player has retired — the NFL has teamed with GE to create the Head Health Challenge, a $20-million research initiative. Among the 16 round-one winners is Scott Grafton, Director of the UCSB Brain Imaging Center, Associate Director of the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, and Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at UCSB.

ICB researchers Tom Soh, Kevin Plaxco and postdoctoral student Scott Ferguson have developed an insturment that can determine concentrations of specific molecules in tiny amounts of whole blood, continuously and in real time.  The device is called MEDIC (Microfluidic Electrochemical Detector for in vivo Concentrations) and provides insight into how fast a living body metabolizes drugs, opening the door to highly personalized medicine.

Research funded by the ICB has resulted in a joint patent between UCSB and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL). The patent results from collaborative research between ARL's Jim Sumner and ICB-UCSB researchers Gui Bazan and Logan Garner.   U.S. Patent #8614021 B2 Agents for Enhanced Charge Transport Across Microbial Membranes

The newly elected Fellows from ICB are: Glenn H. Fredrickson, professor of chemical engineering and director of the Mitsubishi Chemical Center for Advanced Materials, for contributions to the understanding of block copolymers, complex fluids and other soft matter.  Scott T. Grafton, professor of psychological and brain sciences, for establishing brain imaging technology as a tool for cognitive neuroscience and its novel application to normal, plastic and pathological motor behavior.

UC Santa Barbara’s Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (ICB) has received an extension of its contract with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory-Army Research Office, providing an additional $48 million over three years to support research that is inspired by biological systems. The continuation in ICB funding speaks to the success of a decade of fundamental research in the areas of biotechnology, chemistry, engineering, physics, materials science, computer science, neuroscience and medicine.

June 16 - August 19, 2014 The ICB Summer Research Internship in Science and Engineering at UCSB brings science and engineering majors from across the U.S. to UCSB for a summer research experience.