Q & A: Bioengineer Mireille Kamariza can ’t wait to see what’s next

When Mireille Kamariza joined theUCLA Samueli School of Engineering as an assistant professor of bioengineering in January, she brought with her an early record of innovation.Just a decade after earning her undergraduate degree at UC San Diego, Kamariza has already developed a potential point-of-care diagnostic test for tuberculosis. TB is the world ’s second-deadliest infectious disease, behind COVID-19, and still a serious burden in low-income countries.In the late 2010s, as a doctoral fellow at Stanford University, Kamariza and colleagues designed a system with a fluorescent “reporter” molecule attached to a sugar that is the cornerstone of the tuberculosis bacterium’s metabolism. The reporter molecule can then be used to illuminate the germ under a fluorescent microscope.In regions with limited health care resources, TB tests can take months to return results. If Kamariza ’s system proves successful, it could result in a simple, inexpensive test that works in under an hour — which could improve care for millions around the world.As a teenager, Kamariza immigrated to the U.S. from her native Burundi. While she was taking community college courses, an instructor encouraged her to attend UCSD. There, she connected with another mentor, biologistTracy Johnson, who helped Kamariza see herself for the first time as a future scientist. (Johnson herself joined the UCLA faculty in 2013 and is now dean of physical sciences in the UCLA College.)In an interview, Kamariza, ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news