Health

Berkeley students get a global perspective of technology innovation

07/09/19 — Twenty UC Berkeley students - most with limited travel experience, including some who have never left the United States - went on a whirlwind educational tour of Singapore and the Philippines earlier this summer to learn firsthand how technology innovation and application is approached in countries outside of the United States.

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.

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.

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.

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.

New CRISPR-powered device detects genetic mutations in minutes

03/22/19 — BioE's Niren Murthy, Irina Conboy and former postdoc Kiana Aran used a new device called CRISPR-Chip to identify genetic mutations in DNA samples from Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients.

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.