Health

Engineering and Health Care: Bridging the Divide

11/02/08 — According to the World Health Organization, some 10 million children under the age of five die each year. Almost all of these children could survive with access to simple and inexpensive interventions, better maternal health care and safer sanitation and drinking water. At the same time, our increasing longevity accounts for large rises in cancer, heart disease, stroke and other age-related chronic illnesses.

Sensors Could Give Elderly an Assist

10/02/08 — Most people hope to live healthy, independent lives through their elderly years. But that's not always the case because, as people age, they and their loved ones have to worry about not only illnesses, but also injuries, especially from falls. For seniors, falling is the leading cause of injury deaths, nonfatal injuries and hospital admissions. But one team of researchers is working to enable the elderly to live independently through a network of body sensors. The project could allow computers to remotely monitor and analyze the activity of seniors so that, if they fall or stop moving, help can arrive quickly.

Preserving Vision with Hydrogel

08/02/08 — High axial myopia, or extreme nearsightedness, is one of the world's leading causes of blindness. The condition stems from weakness in the sclera, the eyeball's white outer wall, which causes it to deform even under normal pressure within the eyeball. James Su, a graduate student researcher co-advised by MSE and Bioengineering Professor Kevin Healy and School of Optometry Professor Christine Wildsoet, is developing a promising new treatment for the condition, based on a synthetic biomaterial known as hydrogel.

A Remedy for Deadly Water

06/02/08 — In Bangladesh last year, Johanna Mathieu saw unmistakable signs of the poisoning afflicting the impoverished country. "Everyone would show us their hands," says the 26-year-old doctoral student in mechanical engineering. The painful and disfiguring sores, blisters and dark spots are telltale indicators of the deadly toll exacted by arsenic-laced water wells. Mathieu is working with an interdisciplinary group to develop a simple, inexpensive process for removing the toxic element from the water supply.

Genealogical Conclusions

05/02/08 — There are about six billion base pairs in the human genome, and our family tree includes about six billion living humans. So, although DNA sequencing begins in a laboratory, it requires research-level computer science and statistics to crunch the resulting mass of data and make sense of the results. As EECS and statistics professor Yun Song remarks, “Just 15 years ago, it was very difficult for population genetics researchers to run their computationally intensive analyses on desktop computers. It's thanks to relatively recent improvements in computers and algorithms that these problems have become tractable.”

Cellular Connections

12/02/07 — No cancer is good, but brain cancers are among the worst. The most common type, glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), can strike at any age and is usually fatal. Bioengineering professor Sanjay Kumar is studying the deadly brain cancer in a promising new way and developing new forms of therapy that might halt it.

Designing a Micro Solution to the Spread of Global Disease

12/02/07 — Using a device that's roughly the size and price of an upscale cell phone, Berkeley Engineers hope to halt the spread of diseases afflicting millions in the developing world. Dubbed SeroScreen, the handheld instrument will test blood and other bodily fluids for the presence of infection and deliver an on-site diagnosis within minutes for influenza, skin infections, mosquito-borne viruses and other ailments.