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News & Events

Meeting the need for COVID-19 test kits: Pivoting from Seattle Flu Study and developing new rapid tests

Bioengineering professor Barry Lutz, in partnership with Dr. Matthew Thompson, a UW professor of family medicine and global health, is pioneering at home test kits for the Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read more about how the Lutz lab is developing new ways to rapidly test.

Inaugural CoMotion Director’s Award goes to UW researchers assessing the persistence of potentially infectious aerosols in medical facilities

NanoES faculty member Igor Novosselov and an interdisciplinary team of researchers were awarded $25,000 to develop low-cost sensor networks for hospital operating rooms capable of mapping out the spatial and temporal distribution of long-lived aerosols that may contain SARS-CoV-2 or other infectious agents.

Quantum Edge

Quantum computing is the key to solving problems regular computers can’t handle, like designing silver-bullet drugs for cancer or improving materials for data storage. With a culture of interdisciplinary collaboration, and strengths in photonics, materials science, physics and electrical and computer engineering, the UW is positioned to lead the field with the launch of QuantumX, an initiative that brings together quantum expertise across campus.

Optics startup Tunoptix wins federal grant to develop metalenses for imaging satellites at Washington Nanofabrication Facility

Tunoptix, an optics startup co-founded by University of Washington (UW) electrical and computer engineering professors Karl Böhringer and Arka Majumdar, was awarded $223,000 in Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop metasurface lenses (or metalenses) for imaging in satellites at the UW Washington Nanofabrication Facility.

Accelerating Innovation

Students in the lab of NanoES faculty member and ME professor Igor Novosselov’s formed the startup AeroSpec to provide real-time air quality analysis. They recently participated in the Jones + Foster Accelerator Program, which supports students looking to grow their ideas into a new company.

Light-based ‘tractor beam’ assembles materials at the nanoscale

A team led by NanoES faculty member Peter Pauzauskie, a professor of materials science and engineering, has developed a method that could make reproducible manufacturing at the nanoscale possible. The team adapted a light-based technology employed widely in biology — known as optical traps or optical tweezers — to operate in a water-free liquid environment of carbon-rich organic solvents, thereby enabling new potential applications.