Bioengineer Mireille Kamariza Featured as One of 11 Up-and-Coming Researchers

Mireille Kamariza, an assistant professor of bioengineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, was featured in Nature Medicine as one of 11 up-and-coming researchers who are blazing a trail in their respective fields.

As one of the honored researchers, Kamariza was invited to share her thoughts about where her research will take her during the next five years.

“I am excited to see the application of innovative technologies and infrastructures developed during the COVID-19 pandemic to longstanding infectious diseases, including tuberculosis and malaria,” she said. “There has been explosive growth in the diagnostic and surveillance sequencing space, as countries raced to identify which SARS-CoV-2 variant was driving transmission at a given time. These infrastructures can be used to combat other infections, whether seasonal or endemic (e.g., influenza virus or Lassa virus), enabling early detection and rapid control of outbreaks. In my lab, we will continue to leverage chemical and biochemical tools to develop affordable and easily deployable diagnostic technologies that work well in low-income countries.”

Kamariza researches new tools to selectively probe molecular activity of live cells, in real-time, with versatile applications in research and medicine.