Health

Bats’ brains sync when they socialize

06/20/19 — A new UC Berkeley study from bioengineer Michael Yartsev is the first to observe synchronized brain activity in a non-human species engaging in natural social interactions. The finding opens the door to future study on how our brains process social interactions.

Machines that heal

05/30/19 — Rikky Muller is building tiny, wireless devices that can be implanted in the brain, with the aim of treating conditions such as epilepsy or spinal cord injuries.

New machine learning technique may help prevent blindness for millions of diabetics

05/03/19 — Thanks to cutting-edge machine learning techniques developed by IEOR's Risk Analytics and Data Analysis Research (RADAR) Lab at UC Berkeley, millions of diabetic patients now have a cheaper and more accurate way to screen for eye disease.

Football and the teenage brain

05/01/19 — A new study shows that a single season of high school football may cause microscopic changes in the structure of the brain.

Alum’s breakthrough endometriosis test

05/01/19 — Heather Bowerman's company, DotLab, has developed the first non-invasive test for endometriosis.

Graphic of health tools on portable device

Protecting health data privacy

05/01/19 — Artificial intelligence can identify individuals by correlating step data from activity trackers and smartphones with demographic data.

Q+A on the future of food

05/01/19 — Ricardo San Martin weighs in on the alternative meat industry and the challenges of developing plant-based meats.

Detecting superbugs

05/01/19 — DETECT is a test that can quickly identify strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria by recognizing specific enzymes in urine samples.

Oximeter array printed on flexible plastic

Sensors get flexible

05/01/19 — Researchers have created a flexible sensor that can be used over large areas of skin, tissue and organs to detect blood-oxygen levels.

Berkeley research makes lead pipes safe

04/03/19 American Chemical Society — UC Berkeley researchers develop a rapid, cost-effective method to make lead pipes safe.

AI could identify you and your health history from your step tracker

01/29/19 USA Today — Manufacturers say data stripped of identifying information is no privacy risk. But UC Berkeley's Anil Aswani and UCSF's Yoshimi Fukuoka found that artificial intelligence can overcome that. Time to update health privacy laws.

Illustration of the proposed WAND device, with two of the new chips embedded in a chassis located outside the head.

Wireless ‘pacemaker for the brain’

12/31/18 — A new neurostimulator developed by engineers at UC Berkeley can listen to and stimulate electric current in the brain at the same time, potentially delivering fine-tuned treatments to patients with diseases like epilepsy and Parkinson's.

Professor Joyashree Roy and project team member Sreeman Mypati tasting water from ECAR plant.

This innovation removes deadly arsenic from India’s water

12/12/18 The Better India — Everyday, tens of millions of people drink water that significantly increases their risk of cancer and other deadly diseases. UC Berkeley professor Ashok Gadgil amd Asian Institute of Technology's Joyashree Roy hope to fix that with an efficient and cost-effective system called Electrochemical Arsenic Remediation (ECAR) for removing arsenic contamination from drinking water.

Sports Tech – The future of Cal Athletics

12/07/18 Berkeley Science Review — A new collaboration between Cal Athletics and the College of Engineering, puts athletes and engineers to work developing base technologies or applications that improve athletic performance.

MRI scans showing changes in the brains of young football players

Playing high school football changes the teenage brain

11/15/18 — A single season of high school football may be enough to cause microscopic changes in the structure of the brain, according to a new study led by Berkeley EECS professor Chunlei Liu.

Better breast cancer screening

11/14/18 — Using microfluidic technology, researchers can distinguish cells that are central to breast cancer development.

Calorie burner

11/14/18 — Scientists found the specific biochemical pathway that activates brown fat and causes the body to burn more calories.

Blood-oxygen sensor made of an alternating array of printed light-emitting diodes and photodetectors

Skinlike sensor maps blood-oxygen levels anywhere in the body

11/07/18 — A new flexible sensor developed by engineers at UC Berkeley can map blood-oxygen levels over large areas of skin, tissue and organs, potentially giving doctors a new way to monitor healing wounds in real time.

Tara deBoer holding synthetic urine samples being tested with DETECT solution

New test rapidly identifies antibiotic-resistant ‘superbugs’

10/15/18 — A new test dubbed DETECT, co-developed by Berkeley bioengineers, can diagnose patients with antibiotic-resistant infections in a matter of minutes and help limit the spread of antibiotic-resistant “superbugs,” which kill as many as 700,000 people worldwide each year.

human stem cell-derived cardiac microtissue grown on a fiber-based scaffold

Can common heart condition cause sudden death?

09/28/18 Gladstone Institutes — Kevin Healy's bioengineering lab combined their tissue engineering with the Gladstone Institute's genome editing techniques to create a “diseased heart micro-tissue” model. The new tool will help explore how common environmental stress affects normal and abnormal heart tissue.