Rice University Bioengineering

On September 24, we will welcome Dr. Delphine Dean, the Ron and Jane Lindsay Family Innovation Professor and Chair of Bioengineering at Clemson University, as part of the Rice Bioengineering Colloquia Series.

She will discuss work from her lab that spans fundamental questions about how cells respond to their environment to emerging global health technologies

💡Engineering Across Scales: From Cellular Responses to Global Health Technologies
🗓️ September 24
⏰ 12:10 PM
📍BRC 280

Learn more: https://events.rice.edu/event/437023-bioengineering-colloquia-series-engineering-across-sc

Bringing the future of biotechnology into the classroom.

BuoyBeads, a hands-on biotechnology kit developed in the laboratory of Rice bioengineer George Lu, allows high school students to create living materials while exploring advanced science concepts typically taught at the university level.

Alumnus Eugene Chung led the kit’s development and continues to oversee the project as it expands to schools across Texas and Louisiana.
https://news.rice.edu/news/2026/rice-developed-buoybeads-bring-biotechnology-lessons-high-school-classrooms

MusiQ Bio, co-founded by Rice Bioengineering alumnus Manwal Harb, has received a $2.6 million grant from the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute to advance immunotherapy for breast cancer.

The grant will support the clinical development of an ultrasound-based precision drug delivery system for treatment-resistant breast cancers.

While at Rice, Manwal was a doctoral student in Jerzy Szablowski’s lab. Congratulations to Manwal and the MusicQ team on this milestone. https://engineering.rice.edu/news/rice-alumnus-startup-receives-26-million-cprit-grant-advance-immunotherapy-breast-cancer

What would it take to eliminate disease?

On Day 2 of the International Society for Engineering Health's first annual summit, we are building on critical conversations that address this bold question.

Rice University president Reginald DesRoches opened up today's convening, highlighting innovations in health as one of Rice's key core priorities. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH, shared video remarks on the potential for technological innovation to eliminate sepsis and encouraged the society's pursuit of moonshot achievements for humanity.

Throughout the summit, we are hearing from distinguished scientists, clinicians and innovators on the possibilities of eliminating stroke, cancer, schizophrenia, monogenic diseases, Alzheimer's Disease and sepsis. This afternoon, the group will discuss emerging disruptive technologies as ISEH establishes its disease targets.

Today at Rice University, distinguished clinicians, innovators and scientists from around the world are gathering for the first International Society for Engineering Health annual summit.

The charge: answer the bold call to engineer the elimination of diseases.

Co-organized by Rice Bioengineering's Gang Bao, the program opened with ISEH president Dr. Roderic Pettigrew's overview of the society's epic vision. Dr. Phillip Sharp, Nobel laureate and Professor Emeritus at MIT, and Dr. Francis Collins, former director of the NIH, inspired attendees to plan the future of healthcare by aiming high.

A morning panel discussion set the foundation for the next two days of discussion on how scientists, funders, industry and patients can work together to move forward bold discoveries to improve human health. Moderated by Dr. Reed Omary, the panelists included Patrick Clayton of Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas; Arthur Kaindl, CEO of Varian; Michael King, Rice Bioengineering professor and American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) president; Wil Ngwa of Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H); and Elizabeth Schumacher, CEO of Affinity Strategies.

We look forward to the next two days of keynotes, panels and discussion as this distinguished group establishes ISEH's disease targets.

A project led by Rebecca Richards-Kortum will bring faster breast cancer diagnosis to rural Texas.

Richards-Kortum, Malcolm Gillis University Professor of Bioengineering and co-director of Rice360 Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies, has received support from the Hill Prizes program to advance BreastDX: a low-cost, AI-enabled system designed to help health care providers evaluate breast tissue samples at the point of care. Rice’s Ashok Veeraraghavan and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Lei Huo and Ana Refinetti are working with Richards-Kortum on the project.

For underserved communities across Texas and beyond, this translates to earlier detection, faster diagnosis, and better healthcare closer to home when patients need it most. https://ow.ly/uMJE50ZJ1CP

Rice bioengineer Michael King has joined the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas Advisory Committee on AI (ACAI).

As a founding committee member, he will advise on the potential of AI to accelerate cancer research responsibly and ethically.

This committee is part of CPRIT's larger investment in cancer research, which includes more than $4.2 billion to Texas institutions and organizations through academic research, prevention and product development programs. https://news.rice.edu/news/2026/rice-bioengineer-king-joins-texas-cancer-institutes-ai-advisory-panel

Bioengineering students are designing new approaches to meet health care needs through clinical immersion.

A team of Rice bioengineering students, including Christian Diaz, Giann Ruiz, Helena Song, Barbare Tetvadze and Daphne Mayer, recently addressed five unmet healthcare needs at Texas Children’s Hospital and the Texas Heart Institute through the Co-Production Healthcare Innovation Program (CHIP).

Supported by a National Institutes of Health grant, CHIP is coordinated by Rice’s Department of Bioengineering and Medical Humanities Research Institute (MHRI). Its needs-finding approach integrates engineering and clinical perspectives with attention to how patients, caregivers and health professionals experience care.

Senior design teams will begin evaluating the five needs this fall, carrying the students’ bedside observations into the next phase of engineering investigation and development. https://news.rice.edu/news/2026/blade-grass-beating-heart-rice-students-find-design-needs-bedside

Some internships leave a lasting impact. This is one of them.

As we recently welcomed the Rice Global Medical Innovations Program students back to campus after their international summer internships, we're highlighting Angelina Apodaca and her work at the Hospital de Amor in Barretos, Brazil.

Working with the hospital's medical school, Angelina and her team created 3D-printed models that could aid examinations and treatment for a wide range of conditions, from oral cancer to priapism. She also co-taught a class for the prosthetic team on MeshMixer and Bambu Printing, giving the Hospital de Amor new tools to help improve patients' lives for years to come.

Outside of her work in the hospital, Angelina absorbed the rich Brazilian culture, from celebrating Día de São João and the Festa Junina season to visiting São Paulo and trying delicious new cuisine.

Learn more about Angelina's journey: https://gmi.rice.edu/author/ava6/

Could the Rice GMI program be the right next step for your career? Join an info session: https://epmp.rice.edu/info-sessions