– Jill Kato/UC Irvine Beall Applied Innovation

Forget the cuff. Vena Vitals’ sticker-like sensor aims to deliver ICU-level data without ever breaking the skin.

Feb. 19, 2026 – Blood pressure is one of the most important measurements in healthcare. Yet how we track it hasn’t changed much in more than a century.

The standard cuff with the squeeze, wait, release, gives a brief snapshot of a vital sign that has the potential to fluctuate with each passing beat. At the other extreme is the arterial line, a catheter inserted directly into an artery, delivering a continuous stream of data but with the downsides of cost, risk and invasive discomfort.

This binary choice has frustrated clinicians for decades. But a fast-rising startup out of UC Irvine may have uncovered a third way: a soft, skin-like sensor that adheres like a Band-Aid and captures blood pressure continuously, beat by beat. It works without punctures, cuffs, or bulky machines.

Founded in 2019, Vena Vitals is betting that its flexible “blood pressure sticker” can close one of the most persistent gaps in patient monitoring. The unobtrusive small device could replace hardware found in all intensive care units. The tech has already been tested on more than 600 patients in operating rooms across the country and is now moving toward FDA clearance for hospital use.

“This is a massive unmet need in healthcare,” Vena Vitals CEO Ray Liu says. “Our blood pressures are constantly changing, but we only get snapshots in time using uncomfortable cuff compressions, or we need risky invasive procedures to track real-time changes”

A New Pulse on Patient Monitoring

The journey to rethink how we track blood pressure began at UC Irvine, where Michelle Khine, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, first developed the underlying technology. It emerged from her lab’s research into soft, stretchable electronics. The material can stretch like skin while capturing highly sensitive data.

Liu first met Khine more than two decades ago as lab mates in grad school at UC Berkeley. There, they worked on numerous biomedical sensing applications, before their paths split, with Liu heading into industry and Khine pursuing academia. When the idea of reuniting on this venture appeared, neither could pass on the opportunity to tackle such an important unmet need.

Khine contributed the core material science innovation. Liu brought his experience from both large medtech companies and startup digital health exits. And together with Josh Kim, who developed the technology for his PhD and was the lead author on the seminal papers, the three completed the founding team.

Vena Vital’s device works by sensing the tiny changes in pressure on the skin caused by blood pulsing through the arteries. As each beat compresses the sensor, it produces a signal. If blood pressure rises, the signal intensifies. If it falls, the signal dampens. Proprietary algorithms interpret this data in real time.

Vena Vitals began focusing on surgical settings, where continuous blood pressure is essential. In clinical trials, their device was placed on the foot (a location that is out of the surgical field but still over a pulse location) and transmitted data via Bluetooth to a tablet. The results were striking. Side-by-side with arterial lines, the gold standard in the industry, the Vena Vitals device matched rapid blood pressure changes almost perfectly.

Anesthesiologists took notice and saw the potential. “They told us this could really change how they manage patients,” says Liu. “Especially since arterial lines are invasive, introduce patient risk, and have unpredictable procedure times. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes to place one—sometimes it takes 40. You don’t know how long until you try.”

The stakes in the operating room are high. Surgeons, nurses, and techs may all be waiting on that line before they can begin. If a noninvasive wearable can offer the same information with none of the drama, it’s not just a win for the patient, it’s a win for the entire surgical team.

From the OR to Your Bedroom

While Vena Vitals’ initial focus is inside the hospital, its ambitions extend beyond the operating room to the bedroom, where undiagnosed blood pressure-related conditions can go unnoticed.

Sleep apnea affects more than a billion people worldwide, yet most people don’t know they have it. The condition causes the body to stop breathing temporarily during sleep, triggering spikes in blood pressure as the body scrambles to recover lost oxygen. Over time, these repeated surges can put enormous strain on the heart, brain, and kidneys.

Vena Vitals’ device can detect those surges in exquisite detail. “We’re the first and only technology that can quantify the magnitude of blood pressure spikes immediately after apneic events,” says Liu. “That gives doctors a whole new way to assess how severe the condition really is.”

This could have major implications for treatment. Currently, the standard for diagnosing sleep apnea is the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), which counts how many times you stop breathing per hour. But the AHI doesn’t provide the full view of the physiological impact of those events.

For example, a patient might stop breathing 12 times an hour—a case that would normally be labeled mild sleep apnea—but still experience intense blood pressure surges during each event. That kind of spike puts significant strain on the cardiovascular system. Another patient might stop breathing 70 times an hour, which would be diagnosed as severe, but only show mild pressure changes. In other words, what matters isn’t just how often the airway closes, it’s also how intensely the body responds. It’s hypothesized that repeated surges in blood pressure, especially at night, can increase the risk of heart attack, stroke and long-term damage. By including the intensity of these surges, rather than just counting how many times someone stops breathing, clinicians get a more accurate picture of cardiovascular risk.

“This gives us a much more nuanced view,” says Liu. “And in some cases, it can change how doctors decide to treat the patient.”

The long-term vision is for Vena Vitals’ sensors to be part of a comprehensive sleep monitoring system. It could also be integrated into consumer products.

“Consumers want more than sleep quality scores,” says Liu. “They want meaningful health data. And for people with chronic conditions, this kind of information could be game-changing.”

Geared for Impact

Vena Vitals is part of a wave of research-based ventures to take shape within UC Irvine’s innovation community. The company’s ties to the University run deep. It has space at the Cove at UCI and at University Lab Partners (ULP), an independent, nonprofit wet lab incubator located at UC Irvine Research Park. And of the company’s 14 employees, nine are UC Irvine alumni, including five Ph.D.s.

“The university has been foundational for us,” says Liu. “Not just for the technology, but for talent, infrastructure, clinical partnerships, everything.” That support included a Proof of Product (PoP) grant from Beall Applied Innovation, which helped the team conducted early market research and customer discovery, including interviews with about 30 anesthesiologists. The insights shaped both the product’s initial features and the clinical markets the company would pursue first. While the team had always envisioned consumer applications, the interviews reinforced the need to first stay clinically grounded.

“There’s a lot of noise in the wearable space,” says Liu. “But we’ve always been about clinical impact. We didn’t want this to be another gadget you wear. We wanted it to be something that delivers true medical outcomes.”

To get there, the company has secured a mix of venture funding and federal grants, with additional support from accelerators including Y Combinator, MedTech Innovator, and EvoNexus. FDA clearance is anticipated soon this year, which would open the door for the device’s use in hospitals.

Beyond that, the company is already planning for expansion—first into home sleep monitoring, then potentially into chronic disease management and remote patient care.

There’s no shortage of ambition, but Liu remains pragmatic. “We know we’re early,” he says. “But we also know what this could become.”

In a healthcare system built around snapshots, Vena Vitals is offering something rare: continuous insight without added discomfort. It’s a reminder that innovation doesn’t always mean doing more, sometimes it means finding a more elegant solution.

Learn more: https://www.venavitals.com

Click here to read full article on the UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering website.

Eight students from the UC Irvine School of Physical Sciences received the prestigious 2025 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP) award. The fellowship is a five-year program that provides full financial support for three years, and it recognizes outstanding students pursuing research in STEM graduate programs.

“Not only do they pursue research in innovative and impactful fields, but they also perform a broad range of mentorship and training efforts aimed at lifting up those around them. When the nation funds these students, they are investing in the hundreds of other people that these students engage with as well.”
– Franklin Dollar, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and professor in the UC Irvine Department of Physics & Astronomy

2025 UC IRVINE NSF GRFP RECIPIENTS

Massee Akbar – Physics & Astronomy

Massee Akbar graduated with his bachelor’s in physics from the UC Irvine Department of Physics & Astronomy this June and is beginning a Ph.D. this fall in the lab of Professor Howard Lee. With NSF support, Akbar is developing next-generation nanophotonic optical fibers—microscopes as thin as a human hair—by 3D-printing patterns onto fiber tips to control light without bulky lenses. The technology could one day make minimally invasive medical imaging possible.

Click here or visit https://heyzine.com/flip-book/2025SoPS#page/1 to read the full article in the 2025 UC Irvine School of Physical Sciences Deans Report.

UC Irvine Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic researchers Drs. Bernard Choi and Michelle Khine have been awarded a $1.2 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for the project, “Maternal Obstetric Monitoring System (MOMS): a Postpartum Hemorrhage (PPH) Wearable Monitor.”  This award brings the researchers into the NHLBI’s Catalyze Program, a comprehensive translational research support mechanism that provides funding, project management, technical services, and commercialization guidance designed to accelerate the translation of new therapies, devices, and diagnostics to market.

The project aims to develop MOMS, a technology designed to improve early detection of postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), a leading cause of maternal death. By continuously monitoring vital signs, measuring high-quality physiological waveforms, and performing advanced analysis of the measurements, MOMS seeks to identify significant blood loss in new mothers more effectively than current methods, potentially saving lives and improving maternal health outcomes.

The multidisciplinary team – comprising experts in biomedical engineering, obstetrics & gynecology, sociology, and data science – will create a miniaturized, wearable device integrated with multiple sensors.  The device will simultaneously measure continuous blood pressure, heart rate, cardiac output, stroke volume, blood flow, hemoglobin oxygen saturation, and oxygen utilization to facilitate early detection of hypovolemia, or insufficient blood circulation.

The project will deliver a uniquely comprehensive hemodynamic and hemorrhage monitor specifically designed for PPH detection. The team will first finalize their alpha prototype and conduct preliminary validation. The next phase involves refining the technology to create a low-profile, user-friendly beta prototype based on end-user requirements and validated through testing on a diverse population. Data collected will inform predictive algorithm development, culminating in a pilot study with pregnant women during and after delivery.

Upon successful completion, the validated MOMS sensor technology will be ready for both hospital and ambulatory monitoring use during delivery and postpartum care.  MOMS will provide more accurate, precise and robust early indicators of PPH than commercially available technologies, ultimately improving maternal survival rates.

NHLBI’s Catalyze Program enables and expedites the translation of basic science discoveries into new treatments, devices, and diagnostics for patients with heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders (HLBS).  The program advances potential new medical products through development to the preclinical testing stage by providing research funding, mentoring, advisory services, technology development guidance, regulatory affairs support, commercialization assistance, skills development and education.

About Catalyze

Catalyze’s mission is to provide comprehensive support and services to facilitate the transition of basic science discoveries into viable diagnostic and therapeutic candidates cleared for human testing, while developing a translational research workforce fluent in product development and entrepreneurship.  The organization’s strategies include, funding for HLBS-related therapies, and diagnostics across the translational continuum; supporting scientists in setting achievable milestones that advance projects along the research pathway, educating investigators in translation, marketing, and product commercialization; anticipating researcher needs so they can focus on science rather than project administration; and pivoting funding and support quickly based on evolving project and scientific requirements.

Click here to learn more about Catalyze.

The research described above is supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Genetics and age shape the process, but you may have some control over it, too.

By Kathleen Felton, The Washington Post

Whether you’re embracing new silver growths or attacking them strand by strand with tweezers, gray hair is an inevitable part of getting older. “Just as the skin ages and the rest of the organs in your body age, the hair ages, too,” said Helen He, an assistant professor in the Kimberly and Eric J. Waldman Department of Dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

The going-gray process happens at different speeds for different people, she said, but most of us start to notice increasing gray hair sometime in our 30s or 40s, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. Around this time, melanocyte stem cells, which are hair follicle cells responsible for depositing pigment into the hair shaft, can start to become depleted or dysfunctional.

“There’s not really a whole lot known about why the melanocyte stem cells die off,” said George Cotsarelis, chair of the dermatology department at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a hair-follicle stem-cell researcher. But there are a number of reasons, including stress or DNA damage, “that are thought to maybe prevent these stem cells from surviving,” he said.

The process, called cellular senescence, causes hair to “gradually lose its pigment over time,” He said. Strands that previously were black, brown, red or blond start to emerge from the follicle gray or silver-white. Some people also notice that their gray hair has a coarser texture.

Age remains a major predictor of when a person is likely to go gray. One 2012 study of more than 4,000 participants found that between ages 45 and 65, nearly three-quarters were at least partially gray. But experts increasingly think of this as “more of a dynamic process,” said Natasha Mesinkovska, a dermatologist at UCI Health who has studied hair graying.

Previously, experts viewed graying as something that inevitably happened to hair with age. Newer research suggests “the pattern of pigmentation is more of a live thing than something that’s set in stone,” Mesinkovska said. This means some factors may have more influence over the graying process than you think.

You’ll probably go gray similar to the way your parents did

Genes aren’t the only influence, but they do play a major role. “In the end, that’s what’s determining when you go gray,” Cotsarelis said.

Scientists have discovered genes that seem to have a hand in hair graying and may also affect characteristics such as balding, eyebrow shape and beard thickness. There can be ethnicity differences, too. People who are White tend to go gray earlier than people of African and Asian descent, research has found, and natural blonds may experience a higher percentage of graying sooner.

Premature hair graying — which has not been clearly defined, Cotsarelis said, but is sometimes considered graying before age 20 for Whites, before age 25 for Asians and before age 30 for Black people — also seems to be influenced by genes. One variant, called IRF4, is “strongly linked to earlier graying,” Mesinkovska said. And though rare, certain inherited disorders such as Griscelli syndrome, a condition that causes pigment issues, can result in gray hair from birth.

Men and women are equally likely to go gray, but biological sex might influence where those early gray hairs appear: Men tend to gray around the sideburns and temples, while women often notice graying around the front of the head first.

Lifestyle may influence graying, too

There’s a lot experts still don’t understand about how your lifestyle might affect graying. But some studies have found certain nutritional deficiencies, such as vitamin B12 and iron, are associated with early-onset gray hair. These nutritional deficiencies would probably be severe, though, Cotsarelis said, “not something you’re likely to find too often in the U.S.”

Most people won’t need supplements, he said, but because certain mineral deficiencies have been linked to premature hair graying, it’s wise to make sure your diet checks all of your nutritional boxes.

Stress is also thought to play a role. “It’s always kind of noted that people who are under stress seem to go gray,” said Sarah Millar, a professor in the department of oncological sciences and the dermatology department at Mount Sinai.

A 2020 study in the journal Nature found that in mice, stress appeared to cause a loss of melanocyte stem cells. When the sympathetic nervous system, also known as the “fight or flight” response, was activated, those melanocyte stem cells seemed to “basically proliferate and differentiate and migrate away from their kind of niche home,” said Millar, who has researched melanocyte stem cells.

That study “was really the first time there’d been a mechanistic link between activation of neurons by stress and the result of hair graying,” she said. “That was very interesting.”

In another 2021 study, researchers from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons looked at individual hairs from 14 volunteers, and observed an association between graying and weeks where the participants reported higher levels of stress.

It’s not clear whether reducing stress will slow down the process, however; more research is needed. Still, “I do believe that chronic things exhaust you,” Mesinkovska said, “and that’s why mice studies show — if you bug them nonstop, it will make them go gray.”

Not smoking (a habit known to cause early graying), getting plenty of sleep, minimizing stress, and eating a healthy diet will benefit your overall well-being and possibly support the health of your hair follicles, too. “These are, in general, great habits for antiaging, and part of that involves potentially delaying the hair-graying process,” He said.

That may also include exercise — one study has linked premature graying to a sedentary lifestyle — as well as limiting your alcohol consumption.

Can we slow gray hair progression — or even reverse it?

Other than making lifestyle changes, “there isn’t really a whole lot you can do” about gray strands, Cotsarelis said, other than dyeing your hair or loving your new shade.

At least, not yet: “In the past, the field was really focused on characterizing the changes of melanocyte stem cells,” said Mayumi Ito Suzuki, a professor in the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “The next step is to understand how to reverse these changes to not have gray hair.”

Some experts have theorized that melanocyte stem cells might essentially become “stuck” in the wrong location during the process of regeneration. “In theory, if healthy stem cells are preserved, hair graying can be transient,” she said.

Her lab, which studies how melanocytes regenerate from stem cells, explored this idea in a 2023 Nature study. Ito’s team observed the localization pattern of stem cells in young and older mice. “If they’re located in a different place somehow during aging, they remain dormant, and don’t produce mature melanocytes,” she said, and in turn don’t produce pigment. Her team is now looking at human samples to see if relocating melanocytes can help prevent the graying process.

There are some over-the-counter topical products that claim to reverse graying, but “none of them have proven efficacy,” He said. Topicals in general are challenging because pigment-producing melanocyte stem cells are in the deepest part of the hair follicle. This is why drugs like Latisse, which do successfully lengthen and darken eyelashes, “just don’t work on the scalp,” Cotsarelis said. “The skin is too thick.”

Some research on potential new treatments “is getting a lot of attention,” Mesinkovska said. A 2023 study from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine found topical rapamycin may help restimulate melanin. The drug, which is an immunosuppressant used to prevent organ rejection, is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for this use and is “a fairly potent drug,” Millar cautioned.

If you think you’re experiencing early-onset gray, it’s worth consulting your doctor, Mesinkovska said. “If someone comes to me and says, ‘I have early graying,’ I look for the reason,” she said — while there isn’t always one specific cause that can be fixed, sometimes addressing nutritional deficiencies, a thyroid disorder or inflammation may help, she added.

Since every new hair cycle is an opportunity for a strand to regrow without pigment, “if you’re experiencing a lot of hair loss, you may accelerate the graying,” Cotsarelis said.

Hair loss can’t always be prevented — age, a hereditary disposition and chemotherapy are frequent culprits — but the American Academy of Dermatology recommends minimizing breakage by avoiding treatments such as perms that may damage hair, as well as hairstyles that pull at the scalp.

Stay away from tweezers while you’re at it. “There is a myth that if you pluck out gray hair you’re going to get more gray hairs — that’s not necessarily true, but it’s not an effective strategy,” He said. “More likely than not, the hair that grows out of the follicle next will be gray.”

Click here or visit https://bit.ly/4aPkpCP to read the full The Washington Post article.