Category: News

Dec. 16, 2024
UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni and graduate students in his lab are part of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research team developing a new, three-dimensional imaging system for early detection of lung cancer. This disease is one of the most common cancers worldwide, and in the U.S., it accounts for one in five cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society, which notes that early detection is key to survival.

Nov. 14, 2024
The human body contains a vast, complex, and interconnected web of organic tunnels and passageways that weave their way through the cardiovascular, respiratory, and digestive systems. For physicians, reaching into this maze of arteries, bronchial tubes, and gastrointestinal chambers to view and treat diseased or damaged tissue can be, to put it mildly, challenging. Many of these conduits are long and winding but small in diameter, and they can narrow down to microscopic dimensions. Medical devices built to navigate and optically view these areas must be flexible, maneuverable, and carry a light source.

Biochemist David Baker was named a Nobel Prize recipient yesterday (Oct. 9). The computational biologist, professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and director of the UW Medicine Institute for Protein Design has been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in computational protein design. By harnessing the power of computing, Baker has transformed biological research.

One of the drawbacks of fitness trackers and other wearable devices is that their batteries eventually run out of juice. But what if in the future, wearable technology could use body heat to power itself?

UW researchers have developed a flexible, durable electronic prototype that can harvest energy from body heat and turn it into electricity that can be used to power small electronics, such as batteries, sensors or LEDs. This device is also resilient — it still functions even after being pierced several times and then stretched 2,000 times.

The National Center for Earth and Environmental Nanotechnology Infrastructure (NanoEarth) hosted the tenth annual NanoTechnology Entrepreneurship Challenge (NTEC) on April 30th. This year, 15 teams competed from seven separate sites, incorporating 18 students. The Northwest Nanotechnology Infrastructure (NNI) supported one team. The NNI Team was led by student Saowaluk Soonthornkit, researching “Durable Double Perovskite SrColrO3 Electrocatalyst for Acidic Media Water Electrolyzer”. Zhenxing Feng, Ph.D, Associate Professor at Oregon State University, served as the team mentor.

Despite 127 years of being studied, electrons are still surprising researchers. A UW-led team including NanoES members Matthew Yankowitz and Xiaodong Xu, found electrons behaving like quasiparticles with a fractional charge in a unique setup, a first without a magnetic field.