Health

Connor Landgraf with phone and stethoscope

Startup founded by students aims to revolutionize stethoscope

02/12/14 Daily Californian — Family doctors' iPhones may soon be incorporated into regular checkups to help monitor and detect heart conditions, thanks to a startup company run by UC Berkeley students and led by CEO Connor Landgraf (B.S.'13, M.Eng.'14 BioE).

A ‘game-changer’ for HIV/AIDS

02/12/14 — Second-year bioengineering doctoral student Sylvia Natividad-Diaz may have found a way around a persistent obstacle in the treatment of HIV/AIDS-identifying when an HIV-positive patient's condition is worsening before irreversible symptoms are evident. Having that information allows health care providers to deliver the right medications at the right time, leading to better outcomes.

Pinning down malevolent cancer cells

02/07/14 Berkeley Research — Lydia Sohn, associate professor of mechanical engineering, is analyzing circulating tumor cells in the bloodstream of breast cancer patients, aiming to find new methods for early diagnosis and treatment of the disease. Her work has earned her recognition as one of five new Bakar Fellows on the Berkeley campus.

Turkeys inspire smartphone-capable early warning system for toxins

01/21/14 — UC Berkeley bioengineers looked to turkeys for inspiration when developing a new type of biosensor that changes color when exposed to chemical vapors. They mimicked the way turkey skin changes color to create easy-to-read sensors that can detect toxins or airborne pathogens.

Kumar and Murthy get Keck grant for cancer cell research

01/10/14 — Bioengineering professors Sanjay Kumar and Niren Murthy have been granted a $500,000 research award from the W.M. Keck Foundation for their research, which aims to develop an assay platform that will allow researchers to routinely perform single-cell proteomic experiments.

MTM article in Science Translational Medicine

01/08/14 — In a Focus article for the journal Science Translational Medicine, leaders of the joint Berkeley Engineering-UCSF Master of Translational Medicine program explore how the innovative program helps scientists and physicians cross the gap from lab bench to patient bedside.

ME professor’s research determines particles most likely to cause stroke

12/09/13 Daily Californian — While some mechanical engineers use their supercomputers to build airplanes and vehicles, assistant professor Shawn Shadden uses his to map the inner workings of the human heart, and to improve its man-made replacement parts.

Applying the right pressure

11/22/13 — The leading cause of maternal mortality is entirely preventable. Worldwide, as many as 140,000 women die every year from postpartum hemorrhage, primarily in developing countries. But a life-saving medical device once used to stabilize injured soldiers during the Vietnam War may be poised to cut those numbers dramatically, thanks in part to the work of four Berkeley Engineering undergraduates.

Check your head

11/01/13 — Researchers have developed affordable technology to help diagnose brain injuries in real time.

Cypriot BioE student receives HHMI award

09/11/13 — Elena Kassianidou left her home to come study in the United States seven years ago. Now pursuing a Ph.D. in bioengineering at Berkeley, she recently became the first student from Cyprus - and the first Berkeley-UCSF bioengineering student - to be awarded the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's (HHMI) prestigious International Predoctoral Fellowship.

Researchers propose ‘neural dust’ to monitor brain from inside

07/17/13 ExtremeTech — Berkeley Engineering researchers have proposed a network of tiny implantable sensors that could function like an MRI inside the brain, recording data on nearby neurons and transmitting it back out. This long-lasting "neural dust," envisioned by graduate student Dongjin Seo and colleagues in EECS, would solve the problems of size and invasiveness posed by current brain imaging technologies.

From problem to prototype

06/18/13 — For bioengineering undergraduate students Nasim Barzanian, Sakthivel Nagaraj, Neil Ray and Jeffrey Yang, inspiration took the form of a ballpoint pen, which sparked their development of an innovative technology for laparoscopic surgery. The student team formed during a bioengineering course, which partnered undergraduates with a physician to address a real clinical challenge, providing in-depth experience with the formal engineering design process.

Small gadgets that make you healthier

06/12/13 Scientific American — A new movement that combines traditional medical record keeping and public health surveillance with data mining and mobile phone technologies holds great promise for patients and researchers alike. Steven DeMello, director of health care at CITRIS, says mobile diagnosis and surveillance could help blunt the impact of changing demographic trends.

Mind over matter

03/26/13 Berkeley Research — Neuroengineer Jose Carmena and bioengineer Michel Maharbiz do research in BMI, an emerging technology for retraining the brain to operate a prosthetic device such as an artificial limb. They are supported by the campus's new Bakar Fellows Program, which helps early-career faculty pursue innovative research with commercial potential.

The worldwide reach of Berkeley Engineering

03/05/13 — Global problems demand global cooperation. To tackle a wide range of challenges, from clean energy and intelligent infrastructure to cost-effective healthcare delivery, we are launching ambitious research and teaching partnerships with a number of international colleagues.

Compressing breast cancer

02/07/13 — Berkeley engineers, in collaboration with scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, have put the squeeze - literally - on malignant mammary cells to guide them back into a normal growth pattern. The work, led by bioengineering professor Daniel Fletcher, shows for the first time that mechanical forces alone can stop the out-of-control growth of cancer cells.

Berkeley’s exoskeletons a ‘Miracle of Nature’

12/03/12 BBC One — The new BBC show "Miracles of Nature," hosted by Richard Hammond, filmed a recent episode at Berkeley's Etcheverry Hall, where the crew explored the medical exoskeleton system being developed by mechanical engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni and his graduate students.

Shining a light on brain tumors

11/05/12 — Llewellyn “Trey” Jalbert knows what cancer looks like up close. Before applying to be a Ph.D. candidate in the Joint UC Berkeley/UCSF Graduate Program in Bioengineering, he had spent two years as a research associate examining MRI images of patients with malignant brain tumors in the UCSF lab of Professor Sarah Nelson. Then, Jalbert himself was diagnosed with cancer-a malignant melanoma-and underwent surgery.

A new loo

11/01/12 — In response to a challenge posed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop toilets that are clean, affordable and sustainable for the 2.5 billion people who lack access to modern latrines, engineering professor Kara Nelson and postdoctoral student Temitope Ogunyoku designed a new loo.

Mistaken identity

11/01/12 — Berkeley Stem Cell Center researchers have identified a multipotent stem cell as the cause of blocked arteries.