The Center for Bioengineering

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Trailblazing Better Outcomes

Understanding how the human body reacts in a range of conditions is a focus of the Center for Bioengineering’s efforts, from radiation effects to overall health, injury, disease, and mitigation of biological defects. Our computational tools and experimental frameworks are put towards designing diagnostic tools and therapeutics: peering into the brain via implantable microsystems, trailblazing medicine during epidemics, and cultivating living organisms on a 3D-printed base are among the advances now in progress.

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Research Areas

 
 
 
Gloved hands hold a flexible brain sensor Human organ model Center for bioengineering staff group photo biomanufacturing platform

Advanced Sensors and Point of Care Diagnostics

The Center for Bioengineering solves problems in research and healthcare settings using human implantable systems. Sci-fi though it may sound, advanced sensors and point-of-care diagnostics provide insights into the body that have vast human health implications. Our implantable systems enable the modulation and recording of physiological processes, and they can extend or replace lost or missing physiological processes. Our one of a kind ‘Biomedical Foundry’ enables novel and complex implantable systems with direct clinical impact – like a chronic implant for treating mood disorders with an LLNL-developed neural interface. 

Human tissue bioprinting platforms

Human organ models include both organoids grown in the lab and human tissue manufactured through the use of bioprinting. Human brain, heart, and tumor models currently exist for research purposes, and more bioprinting is ever underway. CBE projects in this area include a novel 3D microelectrode array featuring electrodes embedded on flexible pillars that is capable of recording the neural activity of living brain cell cultures in three dimensions and pairing 3D-printed, living human brain vasculature with advanced computational flow simulations to better understand tumor cell attachment to blood vessels.

Precision diagnosis using multimodal electronic health records

Our AI and ML efforts in the precision medicine arena accelerate biomolecular design and advance precision diagnosis and prognosis capabilities via the use of electronic health records. A recent machine learning-based project is called Generative Unconstrained Intelligent Drug Engineering, or GUIDE. It’s an AI-enabled accelerated biomolecular design platform that can be used at-scale on supercomputers and which can incorporate new, in silico, and experimental capabilities. We’ve also worked with healthcare providers Kaiser, UCSF and VA to deploy probabilistic machine learning models for health data, which reveal high-confidence insights into patient stratification and disease progression.

Advanced bio-manufacturing platforms

Leveraging microfabrication and additive manufacturing technologies, we create novel biomaterials and advance biomanufacturing. Among our capabilities are projection micro-stereolithography, volumetric additive manufacturing, novel encapsulation technologies, advanced flow reactors, and micro- and meso- lattice fluidics.

Projects include engineering structured biofilms through advanced bioprinting, developing advanced, multi-shell encapsulation methods both for research and scale-up applications, and high-throughput, cell-free encapsulation systems for synthesizing and characterizing protein-based countermeasures.

Facilities and Capabilities

 
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High Performance Computing at LLNL boasts first-class computational infrastructure that supports the computing requirements of the Laboratory’s scientists in a cost-effective, ecologically sound way.

 
Bioengineering research and capabilities

CMNT is a collaborative space for materials research, device fabrication on extreme scales, and system integration.

 
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Livermore’s Biomedical Foundry leverages state of the art microfabrication techniques within the Center for Micro and Nanotechnology to build microscale human-grade medical implants under an ISO13485-compliant Quality Management System. This unique facility is one of the few in the country that allows for the development of chronic, long-term implantable prototypes. In addition to the cleanroom, the Foundry includes characterization and testing capabilities including semi-automated test equipment developed in-house.

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