Professor Hideaki Tsutsui and colleagues from the University of California, Riverside have developed a portable handheld device for nucleic acid extraction. With its high-speed motor, knurled lysis chamber for rapid sample lysis, and quick nucleic acid extraction using paper disks, this device can yield ready-to-use extracts in just 12 minutes, significantly reducing the time required for sample preparation. This technology is advantageous over current methods as it can be expedited without the need for cumbersome specimen collection, packaging, and submission, shortening the turnaround time.  

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Prof. John Franchak and his team have developed a prototype system that accurately classifies an infant's body position.

Professor Matthew Conley from the University of California, Riverside has discovered that catalysts used to generate polyolefin plastics also perform well in hydrotreatment reactions of plastic waste. This method works by treating plastic materials with known catalysts at 200⁰C to degrade  polymers into smaller alkanes in the presence of hydrogen. This technology is advantageous compared to existing methods since it does not require high temperatures​, has a relatively high yield (+80%)​, and can be applied to a variety of plastics to generate a feedstock of smaller polymers and monomers for further processing.  

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Professor Julia Bailey-Serres and colleagues from the University of California, Riverside have identified transcription factors involved in the synthesis and modulation of suberin in plants. These transcription factors can be gene-edited or otherwise engineered in rice or other monocot crops to alter suberin production – which can lead to development of new rice cultivars with enhanced tolerance to stresses ranging from increased soil salinity to drought to pest. Fig 1: Fluorol Yellow (FY) staining of rice crown roots for suberin in longitudinal views of the exodermis and radial cross sections under environmental conditions of well-watered (CON) or water deficit (WD).

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Prof. Juan Pablo Giraldo and his lab at the University of California, Riverside have developed a method for the targeted delivery of nanomaterials to the phloem such as pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers using carbon dots with a sucrose-functionalized nanoparticle surface (sucQDs). This technology is advantageous surface functionalization with sucrose enables faster and more efficient foliar delivery of nanoparticles into the plant phloem, a vascular tissue responsible for long-distance transport of sugars from sources (i.e., mature leaves) to sinks (i.e., roots). This technology is available for non-exclusive licensing. Fig 1: Representative images showing the high colocalization of sucQDs with the fluorescent dye that labels phloem cells (in blue). Scale bar = 30 μm

Prof. Sean Cutler and colleagues at the University of California, Riverside have engineered a system and methods to induce gene expression in plants and organisms, including mammals, using the chemical compound mandipropamid. Using the PYR/PYL/HAB1 promoter system, the PYR1/HAB1 system is reprogrammed to be activiated with mandipropamid.  When the PYR1/HAB1 system dimerizes through chemical induced dimerization (CID) with mandipropamid, the system functions as a control switch for gene expression. This technology has been demonstrated to advantageously accelerate citrus breeding.  It may be applied to improve CAR T-cell therapy and agricultural crops. Fig 1: UCR’s PYR1/HAB1 system is programmed through chemical induced dimerization (CID) initiated by mandipropamid to function as a switch for agrochemical control of gene expression.  

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