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Health and Medicine

Our research in medicine produces life-saving developments, advances human health and keeps our society thriving.

red and purple blotches like blurry watercolor strokes like floating in yellowish gell with pick splotches and red strokes
Photo Credit
National Cancer Institute
Acute Myelocytic Leukaemia

UCSB researchers develop a genetic sensor that could allow MRIs to image molecular-level changes

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a patient intake form, a stethoscope and a red ribbon that symbolizes HIV

HIV patients are especially vulnerable to extreme weather events
three scientists in lab coats in a laboratory
Photo Credit
Matt Perko
Researchers Mia Raimondi, left, Christopher Hayes and lead author Michael Costello have uncovered how pathogenic Bordetella bacteria adhere to mammalian airways despite their hosts' natural defenses

A new look at an old protein may yield therapy for contagious respiratory disease
Five adults in business attire standing shoulder to shoulder in a natural setting
Photo Credit
Courtesy UCSB Engineering
Left to right: Samuel Lobo, Devon Callan, Erica Keane Rivera, Ventura Rivera, Austin Dubose

UCSB startup builds software to speed drug discovery
A rainbow of prescriptions drugs with white bottles on a black countertop.
Photo Credit
Debreny via iStock
Peptides have found use in over 80 drugs worldwide since insulin was first synthesized in the 1920s.

Scientists unlock a massive new ‘color palette’ for biomedical research by synthesizing non-natural amino acids
A mosquito lands on a blue fabric.
Photo Credit
Photo by Егор Камелев on Unsplash
Finding the right taste to send mosquitoes packing could save hundreds of thousands of lives.

Mosquito taste receptor could lead to new insect repellents
A river meanders through green jungle on the edge of a large city.
Photo Credit
Thiago Japyassu via Unsplash
Yellow fever cases have begun to rise, spilling over the expanding border between the forest and urban areas.

Old diseases return as settlement pushes into the Amazon rainforest
A pregnant woman is silhouetted by diffuse, warm sunlight.
Photo Credit
Kieferpix via iStock
The health of a woman and her future child may be at risk before she even knows she’s pregnant.

Hot, humid conditions during pregnancy undermine child health much more than heat alone
two older white people on couch with virtual reality headsets
Photo Credit
Rendever.com

NIH backs UCSB virtual reality project to help older adults build real social connections
graduate student Kylie Falcione looks at brain scans
Photo Credit
Matt Perko
Kylie Falcione

Brain science, social media and a modern moral panic
illustration of the brain and the corpus callosum
Photo Credit
Life Science Databases, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.1 Japan
The corpus callosum, in red, connects the two hemispheres of the brain together.

New findings in split-brain science: Even minimal fiber connections can unify consciousness
1880-1893 medical watercolor image of polycystic kidney
Photo Credit
Teniswood, George Francis, "Polycystic kidney," Barts Health NHS Trust Archives, c1880-1893 CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Watercolor drawing showing two views of a polycystic kidney. One shows the external surface of the kidney, the other when the organ is bisected. Drawing given to the Museum by Dr. Draper Mackinder, MD, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire

A ‘magic bullet’ for polycystic kidney disease in the making
man with beard and watch outside grey concrete building
Photo Credit
Courtesy
UC Santa Barbara materials scientist Omar Saleh

From charged polymers to life-saving innovations
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