Health
Advance Health Informatics: Stronger health information systems not only improve everyday medical visits, but they are essential to counter pandemics and biological or chemical attacks.
Engineer Better Medicines: Our faculty are developing new systems that use genetic information, sense small changes in the body, assess new drugs, and deliver vaccines. Faculty includes Yong Chen, Noah Malmstadt, Ellis Meng, Michelle Povinelli, Richard Roberts, Pin Wang, and others.
Reverse-Engineer the Brain: The intersection of engineering and neuroscience promises great advances in health care, manufacturing, and communication.
• Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems (BMES) Engineering Research Center: Developing biomimetic devices and prostheses; reverse-engineering parts of the brain (Theodore Berger, Mark Humayun, Gerald Loeb, Ellis Meng).
• Biomedical Simulations Resource (BMSR): Using computational engineering tools to solve biomedical phenomena (Theodore Berger, David D’Argenio, Michael Khoo, Vasilis Marmarelis).
• Center for Genomic and Phenomic Studies in Autism: Survey and build world’s largest database of genetic, physical and behavioral profiles of children with autism (Clara Lajonchere, Constantinos Sioutas).
• Center for Health Informatics (CHI): Creating a global computing platform for the exchange of health information (Stephan Erberich, Carl Kesselman).
• Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN): Facilitating biomedical data-sharing (Carl Kesselman).
• The BioRC project by Prof. Alice Parker employs analog computations to emulate neural structures, supported by the use of nanotechnology, with structures a few nanometers in dimension, with the future capability of controlled assembly and use.
Another strong area of research focuses on wearable sensors and mobile computing for health; faculty include Murali Anavaram, Urbashi Mitra, Gaurav Sukhatme, Maja Matarić, Shri Narayanan.
Viterbi School faculty are also involved in developing methods and technologies for new diagnostics and therapies for a wide variety of conditions and disorders of vision, sleep, motor/movement control, social behavior, and cognitive function. Faculty include Ted Berger, Martin Gundersen, Michael Khoo, Gerald Loeb, Maja Matarić, Shri Narayanan, Terrence Sanger, Costas Sioutas, Francisco Valero-Cuevas.
A significant number of our faculty are involved in imaging research, including Richard Leahy, Krishna Nayak and Kirk Shung. The Viterbi School of Engineering is teamed up with the Keck School of Medicine.
