New Grant Awards

Professor Zhongping Chen has been awarded a four-year $2.9 million grant from the NIH National Heart Lung and Blood Institute to continue the development of a new imaging technology that will enhance clinicians' ability to identify vulnerable lesions, tailor interventional therapy and monitor disease progression for patients with cardiovascular disease.

Professor Timothy Downing has been awarded a five-year $3 million grant from the NSF "Understanding the Rules of Life" initiative for the project titled Epigenetics 2: Connecting cell fate and epigenome drift through physical models of chromatin structure and dynamics. The initiative is part of the NSF's 10 "Big Ideas" for future investment at the frontiers of science and engineering.

National Science Foundation has awarded a $547,000 grant to Professors Anna Grosberg, Wendy Liu and Elliot Botvinick for their project to investigate how COVID-19 affects the heart. They will look at the interplay between the immune system and cardiac function in cases of severe coronavirus.

Research Highlights

UC Irvine engineers have developed a novel artificial intelligence method for assessing echocardiograms that could help cardiologists more accurately determine heart function and disease. The research, led by Samueli School Professors Arash Kheradvar and Hamid Jafarkhani, was recently published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

Professor Timothy Downing was a finalist in the inaugural Shu Chien Early Career Award which recognizes pre-tenured faculty who demonstrate outstanding scholarly achievement.