Archive for category: News

By Jill Kato/UC Irvine Beall Applied Innovation

UC Irvine professor of ophthalmology and biomedical engineering Tibor Juhasz spent 25 years perfecting a laser treatment for glaucoma. Now it’s ready to change how the world sees.

June 11, 2025 – Most people let go of a plan if it doesn’t pan out after a few months. Tibor Juhasz held onto his for more than two decades.

Back then, Juhasz, a physicist and biomedical engineer, was part of a team trying to develop a new kind of laser treatment for glaucoma.

It didn’t work.

But instead of dropping the aspiration, he put it on pause.

“We failed,” he says, laughing. “But the good thing is we failed early.”

It would be more than 25 years before that aspiration eventually developed enough to become ViaLase, his startup built around a femtosecond laser system that treats glaucoma with a procedure so precise, patients feel like nothing happened.

A femtosecond laser emits ultra-short pulses of light—each pulse lasts for just one hundred femtoseconds, or one hundred quadrillionths of a second (or 0.0000000000001 seconds). To put that in perspective, a femtosecond is to a second what a second is to about 32 million years. Because the pulses are so short and precise, they can cut or alter tissue at the micron level without damaging surrounding areas. It’s like doing surgery with a light beam so fine it doesn’t leave a mark.

This is the kind of precision Juhasz, a professor at UC Irvine with joint appointments in ophthalmology at School of Medicine and biomedical engineering at the Samueli School of Engineering, had in mind when he set out to change how millions of people manage a leading cause of blindness: glaucoma.

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of irreversible blindness in the world, affecting 76 million people globally—a number expected to rise to 112 million by 2040.

Glaucoma is known as the “silent thief of sight” for a reason—people don’t feel it. It damages the optic nerve over time as pressure builds up in the eye. By the time someone notices vision loss, it’s often too late to stop it.

The only proven way to treat glaucoma is by lowering intraocular pressure, usually through eye drops or invasive surgeries. But drops can be expensive, difficult to use consistently, and easy to forget—especially when you don’t feel that anything is wrong.

“The compliance rates with eye drops are terrible,” says Juhasz, who works out of the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute. “That’s just human nature. If you don’t feel pain, you don’t think it’s urgent.”

“That’s just human nature. If you don’t feel pain, you don’t think it’s urgent.”

ViaLase offers an entirely new approach. Its FLigHT procedure, short for “femtosecond laser image-guided high-precision trabeculotomy,” uses tightly focused light pulses to create a microscopic channel in the eye’s drainage system, allowing fluid to flow and pressure to drop.

What’s revolutionary isn’t just what it does. It’s how it does it.

“This is a surgical procedure, but it’s not surgery,” Juhasz says. “There’s no incision, no implant, no cutting open of the eye. The laser goes through the cornea, and you don’t even feel it.”

From the patient’s point of view, the procedure couldn’t be simpler. A dome-like glass lens with gentle suction stabilizes the patient’s eye while a surgeon selects a treatment site using real-time imaging. Then the laser takes over. In minutes, the laser creates a drainage channel 500 microns wide and 200 microns high, or about the size of a grain of dust. That’s it.

There’s no pain. No recovery time. No visible wound. Patients walk out of the doctor’s office on their own, often seeing clearly right away. And so far, the treatment’s pressure-lowering effects have lasted for up to four years.

“We expect it will work even longer. And it can be repeated, since we’re only treating a very small portion of the drainage angle each time,” Juhasz says.

Juhasz’s technology may sound space-age, but it was born the old-fashioned way: through slow, stubborn perseverance.

When Juhasz first tried to apply femtosecond lasers to glaucoma, the technology wasn’t there. Imaging resolution was too low, and lasers weren’t precise enough. So, he changed direction.

Along the way, he developed the laser technology that would become IntraLase, the first femtosecond laser used in LASIK eye surgery. (In LASIK, the femtosecond laser cuts the cornea to reshape vision; in ViaLase’s procedure, it bores a microscopic tunnel inside the eye to relieve pressure.) That work earned him early recognition: in 2002, he was awarded the Berthold Leibinger Innovation Prize, a prestigious international honor for breakthroughs in laser technology.

Then in 2017, Juhasz realized the tools had improved enough that he could adapt them to treat glaucoma.

“The imaging was better. The laser was better. We could see what we needed to see and aim exactly where we needed to aim,” he says.

Juhasz began developing his treatment, thanks to funding from the National Institutes of Health and a Proof of Product (PoP) grant from UC Irvine Beall Applied Innovation. PoP grants provide industry perspective and critical funding during a pivotal phase of development. For Juhasz, the PoP grant was instrumental in helping conduct early validation experiments using human cadaver eyes, which helped demonstrate that the FLigHT procedure was viable outside of theory. It also provided critical early-stage credibility when approaching investors.

“The fact that the technology was coming from UCI gave it a lot of credibility with the investors.”

“The fact that the technology was coming from UCI gave it a lot of credibility with the investors,” Juhasz says.

Early on, Juhasz collaborated with UC Irvine professor Zhongping Chen from UC Irvine’s Samueli School of Engineering and Beckman Laser Institute to develop the first prototype used in the NIH-funded studies. ViaLase’s early results were promising. Patents were filed. Investors were approached.

ViaLase’s early traction was also helped by its location. Not just at UC Irvine, but in Orange County as well, which Juhasz calls “the center of the ophthalmic device industry.”

“This is where all the companies are, the experienced engineers, and investors who specialize in eye care,” he says. “In fact, when we started IntraLase, the investors made us move the company to Irvine because this is where the talent and ecosystem are.”

That proximity paid off—helping the company secure early investment, talent, and momentum. With that foundation in place, ViaLase began clinical trials, with first-in-human procedures taking place in Hungary in late 2020. The company announced in April 2024 that it had closed a Series C round, securing approximately $40 million in gross proceeds.

In recognition of his work as a translational innovator, Juhasz was named UC Irvine’s Entrepreneurial Leader of the Year in 2022. During that same year, he also received the Golden Goose Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an honor given to researchers whose federally funded work has had unexpected, transformative societal impact.

ViaLase has now received CE mark approval, or a certification that their device meets health, safety, and environmental standards for sale in the European Union. They’re preparing for commercial launch in Europe this summer.

In the U.S., ViaLase is beginning a pivotal trial required for FDA approval—a randomized, two-arm study comparing ViaLase’s procedure to existing treatments, with a follow-up period of at least a year.

When asked what’s been the most rewarding throughout this long journey, Juhasz’s answer is immediate.

“It’s helping people. It’s improving lives. That’s the most exciting part,” he says. “Glaucoma may not kill you, but no one wants to go blind. If we can prevent that—if we can make it easy for people to keep their sight—that’s everything.”

And if there’s a message he wants to share with other researchers at UC Irvine or elsewhere, it’s this: don’t give up.

“This started in the mid-1990s. It’s 2025, and now we’re finally getting there,” he says. “It takes time. But if you believe in it, keep going.”

Click here to read full article on the UC Irvine Beall Applied Innovation website.

 

By Jill Kato, UC Irvine Beall Applied Innovation

A Platform for Turning Research into Impact

These aren’t just prototypes or hypotheticals. They’re startups—each one rooted in years of research across the University of California system.

These ventures were center stage at the 2025 Born in California event, held May 5 at the Cove at UC Irvine’s Beall Applied Innovation. The event brought together 20 startups from all 10 University of California campuses and drew more than 200 attendees, including investors, researchers, and campus leaders. Now in its fourth year, Born in California has become a regular feature of OC Innovation Week and a central venue for university research on the path to commercialization.

But before there’s a product, there’s a pitch. Each team had six minutes to present, followed by a brief Q&A. For the first time, founders received advance coaching from investors—resulting in more polished, market-ready presentations across fields like gene therapy, battery materials, and data infrastructure.

The range of startups reflected both broad societal challenges—such as chronic illness, climate risk, and data security—and technical frontiers, including artificial intelligence, next-generation materials, and aerospace systems.

Biotech with a Mission

Several teams presented technologies aimed at addressing persistent gaps in healthcare access, diagnosis, and treatment—reminders that medicine is as much about people as it is about precision.

Makani Sciences (UC Irvine): Real-time respiratory monitoring outside the hospital

Makani is developing a wireless, wearable device that tracks breathing rate and depth continuously, aiming to improve respiratory care for patients from neonatal to sports and performance tracking.

Persperion Diagnostics (UC San Diego): Non-invasive, sweat-based glucose testing

Using fingertip sweat instead of blood, Persperion offers an affordable and user-friendly alternative to traditional glucose monitors—with future potential to measure hormones and other biomarkers.

Kopra Bio (UC San Francisco): Turning cancer cells into self-destructing agents

Kopra Bio is developing an immunotherapy platform for glioblastoma that reprograms cancer cells to trigger their own destruction, showing dramatic early results in preclinical models.

DataUnite (UC Santa Barbara): Privacy-first health data for faster clinical trials

DataUnite gives researchers access to real-world health data without compromising patient privacy. Its platform lets hospitals and biopharma companies query data inside existing systems—without copying or transferring it—cutting the time and cost of clinical trials by up to 50%.

By Yuika Yoshida, Orange County Business Journal 

Could ‘Revolutionize’ Neonatal Care, CEO says

IRVINE – Makani Science is one step closer to commercial launch.

The Irvine medtech company last month received 510(k) clearance from the Food and Drug Administration for its wireless, wearable respiratory monitor in adults.

“It shows that our device not only works as we say it does, but it shows that it’s safe, it’s accurate and at least equal to current devices that are on the market,” Chief Executive Greg Buchert told Makani’s respiratory monitor is a small stretch sensor made of plastic sheets that shrink when heated.

The company has raised more than $3.5 million to date, including a recent $1.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

With approval, commercialization could begin as early as the fourth quarter of this year, according to Buchert.

 15-Month FDA Delay

It took about 15 months to get approval, Buchert said.  The process was delayed due to the FDA changing its standards, forcing the company to repeat its clinical trials and meet new cybersecurity requirements.

“We performed, we executed and we got the clearance,” Buchert said.

Makani was co-founded in 2019 by Michelle Khine, a biomedical engineering professor at the University of California, Irvine, and her post-doctoral student Michael Chu, who is now chief technology officer.

Its respiratory monitor is intended to be worn on the abdomen.  Data is then transmitted to the user’s phone via Bluetooth, eliminating the need for wires and making it possible for people to wear on the go.

“There are continuous respiration monitors, but they don’t work well during motion,” Buchert said.

 $1.1M Grant from the NIH

Makani also received a $1.1 million grant from the NIH the same month it got the FDA approval.

It was awarded by the NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to classify and prevent apnea of prematurity, a condition where newborns suddenly stop breathing for short periods of time.

Babies rarely die from the episodes, but research shows that they’re later associated with delays in intellectual language and motor development depending on the frequency and duration of the apnea.

Nearly half of babies born before 35 weeks will experience apnea of prematurity, according to Buchert.

The grant will help fund the development of a second-generation version of the company’s device that will measure respiratory rate, but very few track volume, he said.

Makani is conducting the study in partnership with Dr. Terrie Inder, a director of neonatal research, at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, which merged with Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego to create a new combined entity called Rady Children’s Health.

The second-generation device will be modified with a stimulator so that after identifying a pause in breathing, it can stop the apneic event.

Eventually, the company’s goal is to apply a machine algorithm to the device to see what’s causing apneic events and, if possible, stop them before they occur, Berchert said.

“This could be revolutionary in neonatal medicine,” he said.

Click here to read full Orange County Business Journal article.

Makani Science Receives FDA Clearance for Groundbreaking Respiratory Monitor

Irvine, Calif. – April 2, 2025 – Makani Science, an innovator in wearable respiratory monitoring technology, today announced that it has achieved 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market and distribute its Makani Respiratory Monitor.

This clearance validates patient safety, as well as the accuracy and reliability of Makani’s innovative device, which is designed to continuously monitor respiratory rate in real time. The Makani Respiratory Monitor underwent comprehensive and rigorous testing and evaluation, successfully demonstrating its performance in a variety of clinical and real-world settings This 510(k) clearance is a significant milestone for the company, providing premarket approval for the Makani Respiratory Monitor.

This small comfortable unique monitor enables monitoring of ambulatory individuals rather than being hampered by wires. The monitor can provide continuous real-time information to iOS devices that can be accessed by patients and their healthcare providers. The immediate availability of respiratory performance provides an advantage over other respiratory monitors that provide delayed information.

“FDA clearance opens the door to commercialization, clinical integration, and strategic partnerships,” said Greg Buchert, MD, MPH, and CEO of Makani Science. “It’s not just a regulatory win—it’s a strong endorsement of the technology we’ve worked tirelessly to develop and refine. As a physician, I am confident we will improve the health and lives of individuals who use the Makani Respiratory Monitor.”

With FDA clearance secured, Makani Science is moving forward with manufacturing, early clinical deployments, and research collaborations. The device is poised to support applications in hospitals, outpatient clinics, athletic performance monitoring, and early disease detection—anywhere continuous, non-invasive respiratory monitoring can make a meaningful difference.

About Makani Science

Makani Science (www.makaniscience.com) is a medical technology company based in Irvine, California specializing in wearable, real-time respiratory monitoring. Its flagship product—the Makani Respiratory Monitoring System—delivers accurate, continuous tracking of respiratory rate in a lightweight, wireless design. The company is focused on transforming how breathing is monitored across clinical, research, and performance settings. Makani Science is on a mission to help millions breathe better through smarter, non-invasive monitoring solutions. Contact Dr. Greg Buchert (greg@makaniscience.com) for more information.

Click here to read full press release.

By Cassandra Nava, UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering

April 2, 2025 – Drone demos, virtual reality goggles and miniature robots were just a few of the 200 projects on display at the Samueli School of Engineering’s Annual Design Review on Friday, March 14. Around 1,000 engineering students from the school’s six departments filled up the UC Irvine Student Center where they presented their group projects.

The senior design program gives fourth-year engineering students an opportunity to address real-world problems with innovative ideas for creative solutions. After working in teams on their projects for two quarters, students are then able to present their ideas by displaying or demonstrating them to a wider audience at Design Review. The annual event allows students to practice their presentation and networking skills, as they share their projects with alumni, industry professionals, faculty, fellow students and staff.

Engineering Dean Magnus Egerstedt welcomed everyone and encouraged students to enjoy the event. “You’ve been in classrooms, internships, all sorts of things, but this is where the rubber hits the road,” said Egerstedt. “This is where the magic is, where you show off what you’ve learned. This event right here is what the value of an Anteater engineering education is all about.”

Project teams spanned over three rooms in the Student Center. Clever and ingenious solutions were offered for important and practical issues, like a smart pet feeder, elderly care alert bracelet and sign language robot. Students kept attendees engaged with their presentations and demonstrations of interactive devices like a playable computer keyboard connected to a harp or an instant smart water bottle that can test a pH level in seconds.

Around 40 guests attended the event, including Samueli Academy High School engineering instructor AJ Polizzi, who has attended regularly over the years, as it influences how he prepares his students.

“It gives me a chance to interact with current engineering students,” Polizzi said. “And we’re feeding back what you guys are doing here to help motivate our students to pursue that work in high school. We go back to the kids and say, ‘hey, look, this is what they’re doing over in college.’ We are teaching them the same lesson: going from an idea to a design to a product.”

The three-hour event ended with the announcement of the Dean’s Choice Awards. Of the 21 nominations, 12 projects were recognized. The dean and a team of graduate student judges selected the winners based on the following criteria: if the project solves an important problem, if it is practical and if it has the wow factor. Below are this year’s Dean’s Choice Award winners.

BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

EMG- FES: Rehabilitation & EMG-Assisted Control for Health (REACH) 

This project uses a patient-specific automated electrical simulation system to treat stroke victims’ hand contractures. Using AI techniques, the students hope to automate and improve stroke rehab and physical therapy.

Team members: Andrew Eck, HyungCheol Kim, Michael Song, Edmund Totah

J & J Medical Simulator: SimuMed Solutions  

The team won for their design of a model to help support catheter testing and improve catheter development safety through a realistic groin puncture model. The team — sponsored by Biosense Webster, a Johnson & Johnson MedTech company — won due to their accurate engineering methods in developing and testing materials.

Team members: Hanh Nguyen, Janelle Ho, Lanie Le, Nadeen Morsi, Raul Quintero, Charissa Taim

CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING

Batch Distillation

Students in this team tackled challenges relating to sustainable energy and environmental protection by investigating batch distillation. The use of distillation can be applied to everyday uses and products like to separate components, purify products, or aid in the production of alcohol, fragrances and more.

Team members: Amy Fernandez, Salvador Martinez, Chloe Lee, Gordon Ko

CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

Black & Veatch: OASIS Project

This project investigated the possibilities of utilizing secondary effluent, or treated wastewater, from a water reclamation facility to provide drinking water. The group of students found that this will drought-proof the water supply for climate change resilience. They also displayed their findings of water quality requirements, treatment technologies and permits and regulations needed to make this a reality.

Team members: Joshua Faith, Taylor Mangold, Monica Tith, Por Asvaplungprohm, Justino Lopez-Gonzalez

APEX Environmental & Water Resources Remedial Design and Implementation 

Students in this team were able to explore the field of environmental remediation, which is the process of restoring contaminated environments. The students utilized hands-on and real-world experience at a site with significant environmental contamination. The project identified site-specific challenges and evaluated various approaches and technologies.

Team members: Kendrick Pam, Ahtziri Meneses, Henry Rui Zhi Quan, Louwing Perez

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE

Envision – Gesture Interface Device 

This team’s project aimed to solve the problems with enabling real-time AI for gesture recognition on devices with restricted storage and processing capabilities. The goal of the project was to help people not familiar with computers to have easier access to computing. The demonstration showed practical functionalities and input methods for applications.

Team members: Ally Liu, Derek Duy Dao, Gregory Shklovski, Yasper De Jong

Project Prometheus (Wildfire Detection System) 

A wildfire monitoring system using energy-efficient sensor packs was proposed by this team. The dangerous issue of wildfires was addressed by the students, as they considered the challenges that remote areas face with early detection.

Team members: Andy Yang, Cem Babalik, Jaime Rodriguez, Kenny Lai 

Glove Band (Air Violin) 

The students in this team created a glove that allows the wearer to “play” violin with just hand movements. The sensor-embedded glove translates user movements into musical notes, which are processed by a microcontroller and output from a speaker.

Team members: Tangqin Zhu, Canting Zhu, Zhengyang Zhuang, Thomas Yeung, Aarav Awasthy

MECHANICAL AND AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

Fluid Powered Vehicle Competition (FPVC) 

The Zotdraulics team built a vehicle that runs on hydraulic and pneumatic power via human input. The students represented UCI in its first entry into the Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge sponsored by the National Fluid Power Association, whose goal is to further fluid power technology.

Team members: Adrian Jimenez, Ben Trejo, Elaine Kwok, Ian Lin, Karen Gines, Steven Tsui

UCI CanSat 

The annual international engineering challenge, CanSat asks student teams to design and build a space-type system. This year they designed a container deployable from a rocket with controlled descent rates. Last year, the team placed second in the U.S. and fourth worldwide.

Team members: Kaylee Kim, Khushi Gupta, Sarah Ho, Brady Cason, Naethan Fajarito, Timothy Yee, Diane Yoon, Andrei Darujuan, Felix Jing, Zhanhao Ruan

UAV Forge

This team developed an autonomous aerial vehicle to compete in the international RoboNation Student Unmanned Aerial Systems competition. The students hope their aircraft design will outperform their entry in last year’s competition, where they placed in fourth place nationwide.

Team members: Silvia Tinelli, Ozzy Sanchez-Aldana, Eesh Vij, Anthony Tam, Trung Huynh, Isaiah Jacobs, Eric Pedley, Octavio Partida, Philip Jian

MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

JPL: Designing Crushable Lattices for Terrestrial Hard Impactors 

Team members in this NASA JPL-sponsored group set out to find solutions for a low-cost hard landing of mission architecture. This is relevant for when rocks samples from Mars are brought to Earth. Students developed a lattice structure that will absorb energy from a hard landing.

Team members: Andy Chen, Timothy Dang, Bryan Gong, Joelene Velasco, Martin Zhong

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