Advancing Human Health

Davis-based Storx Technologies has developed a noninvasive device that accurately determines a baby’s well-being in the womb — and helps doctors decide whether the baby can be delivered naturally, avoiding an unnecessary cesarian section. The innovation was developed in electrical and computer engineering professor Soheil Ghiasi’s UC Davis lab after Ghiasi’s wife experienced a C-section.

Blood and cerebrospinal fluid flow are important transport processes in the brain that occur mostly in capillaries with a diameter of 5-8 micrometers, the smallest blood vessel in the brain. To microfluidic researchers like Chemical Engineering Associate Professor Jiandi Wan, this is an opportunity to play a significant role in discovering how the brain works.

Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Soheil Ghiasi's lab has built a transabdominal fetal pulse oximeter to measure a baby's blood oxygen saturation levels non-invasively.

With heart disease remaining the number one cause of death in the United States, Chen-Izu lab’s research into heart diseases is as relevant and urgent. The lab’s mission is to translate breakthrough research findings to develop new drug therapies to prevent and treat heart diseases more effectively.

Doctors already rely on a patient’s medical history to prescribe the right treatments and medications, but Computer Science Distinguished Professor Kwan-Liu Ma and Dr. Shin-Ping Tu at the UC Davis School of Medicine think they can also use it to improve how the entire medical system works together.

Learn how to build a Corsi-Rosenthal box. The device was created to provide significant reduction in the amount of virus-laden, aerosol particles that are in the air. Follow along as Dean Richard L. Corsi, co-inventor, shows you the major components of this device, and how to build one.

In professor Audrey Fan's laboratory, biomedical engineering undergraduate students Matthew Kim and Denise Zhong research diagnostic imaging for intracranial stenosis (narrowing of the arteries bringing blood to the brain).

Researchers at the College of Engineering have developed a transgenic, or genetically modified, lettuce producing a drug to protect against bone density loss in microgravity.

UC Davis biomedical engineering (BME) professor Alyssa Panitch seeks to prevent our bodies from getting in their own way when we’re healing wounds. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than 31% of all baby deliveries in the U.S. were by C-section in 2018. While some C-sections are necessary, any surgery comes with risks. Therefore, both medical professionals and insurance companies would like to avoid unnecessary C-sections.