Lab Projects
At the heart of the Deep Tech Innovation Lab lies a unique interdisciplinary journey. Here, students from business, engineering, and law collaborate closely with academic and industry experts.
In the lab, the students analyzed work with a variety of technologies related to climate change, health care, AI, and cybersecurity among others. They provided principal investigators and technology transfer experts at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab insights into the competitive environment, the value chain, and the patent landscape to determine the best path to commercialization.
Our team presented to and interacted with the inventors and other members of the JBEI Research Committee. We received great feedback for the recommendations we offered and they seemed intrigued and interested by our findings! This was a great opportunity for us to experience firsthand presenting in the corporate setting. Thank you for all the guidance and support through the semester that helped us navigate through our deliverables and the final presentation!
Tomographic Electrical Rhizosphere Imager (TERI) Project 2022-2023
Root phenotyping is is time-consuming, largely intrusive, and/or not reflective of field environments. It takes 3-4 hours to dig and clean one plant core. Inspired by medical imaging technology, Dr. Yuxin Wu from Berkeley Lab developed TERI to provide an accurate, efficient, and non-intrusive method to quantify a plant’s root system.
The student team analyzed patents, interviewed potential customers and industry stakeholders, and identified market potential in 4 unique areas: Plant breeding, Gene editing, Agrochemicals, and Monocrops.
Working closely with Dr. Yuxin Wu and Jeremy Greeter, Senior Commercialization Manager at Berkeley Lab, the team interviewed 25 industry experts and organized and hosted a zoom roundtable with participation from 8 potential partners.
Student Team: Pedro Vergara, Master of Laws – LL.M 2023, Liberty Hudson, Mechanical Engineer – MEng 2023, Lauren Takata, Mechanical Engineer – MEng 2023 Shogo Yakame, Full time MBA – Haas School of Business 2024
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Dr. Yuxin Wu
Staff Scientist & Geophysics Department Head in the Earth & Environmental Sciences Area
Berkeley Lawrence Lab
Novel Bio Production Methods of 4-vinylphenol
Researchers at Berkeley Lab led by Alberto Rodriguez developed a method to produce the bioplastics precursor 4-vinylphenol (4VP) from corn stover lignin using recombinant bacteria. This technology represents an important advance that could drive down the costs and improve the sustainability of producing bioplastics and other biobased chemicals.
Students from the Deep tech Innovation Lab compared the value opportunity against the likelihood of success across nearly a dozen markets. The students interviewed 20 experts and identified several non-intuitive paths toward new research initiatives and commercialization opportunities for the technology.
Student Team: Carson Billingsly, BioEngineer – MEng 2024, Kevin Cahya, BioEngineer – MEng 2024, Ryan Granché, Masters of Translational Medicine – 2024, Audrey Hermann, Master of Business Innovation, 2024, Ivan Jayapurna, Applied Science & Technology, PhD 2024, Kavisha Shroff, BioEngineer – MEng 2024
Thank you for teaching us the intellectual property analysis and business development frameworks in our experiential class. In addition to broadening my technical bioengineering expertise, it has been so valuable to learn strategies to assess commercialization and market adoption for cutting-edge research and breakthroughs in synthetic biology.
Lithium Sulfur Battery
Lithium-sulfur batteries have the potential to offer higher energy capacity than lithium-ion batteries at a lower cost. This is particularly appealing for the Electric Vehicles.
Dr. Gao Liu from Berkeley National Lab along with several other PIs have developed several patented technologies related to novel materials and electrode structures for Lithium Sulfur batteries. These solutions are cheaper and more sustainable than current materials and improve capacity and cycle life of the batteries.
The students dug deep into potential application areas, competitive technologies, and presented a detailed cost analysis to Dr. Gao Liu and Shanshan Li, commercialization manager at Berkeley Lab.
After performing in-depth analysis on the technology readiness level in comparison to other technologies in development, and speaking to a handful of Lithium Sulfur battery experts, the student team made several valuable recommendations for future research directions for the Berkeley Lab scientists.
Student Team: Dongwan Kim, MBA 2023, Bronte Kolar, Bioengineer – MEng 2023, Stephanie Popielarz, Mechanical Engineer – MEng, 2023, Kaidi Wu, IEOR – MEng 2023, Fan Xia, Mechanical Engineer – PhD 2025, Xiaochen Yang, Materials Science – PhD 2026
For more information on this technology, click here and here
I very much enjoyed collaborating with the students from ENG 273/274. Their passion and commitment to grasping the nuances of my technology were inspiring. They immersed themselves in the details of the business, technological, and intellectual property dimensions, delivering a comprehensive analysis that unveiled novel prospects for future research and development endeavors. Their imaginative thinking and fresh perspectives offered valuable insights that we had not previously considered.