New Stanford-led research published in the April 5, 2007, issue of Nature describes a technique to directly control brain cell activity with light. It is a novel means for experimenting with neural circuits and could eventually lead to therapies for some disorders.

Tagged: bioengineering, brain, neural, Human Health, Medicine

VIDEO: The human body is accompanied by a mind and many would say a soul, but it is fundamentally a machine. And so, Professor Scott Delp reasoned several years ago, it should be simulated on a computer, yielding new insights that doctors and researchers could use to help the disabled, the elderly and even healthy athletes move better.

Tagged: bioengineering, learning, simulation, Human Health, K-12 Education, Engineering

The fight against the liver disease hepatitis C has been at something of an impasse for years, with more than 150 million people currently infected, and traditional antiviral treatments causing nasty side effects and often falling short of a cure. Using a novel technique, medical and engineering researchers at Stanford have discovered a vulnerable step in the virus' reproduction process that in lab testing could be effectively targeted with an obsolete antihistamine.

Tagged: Bio-X, bioengineering, hepatitus, Human Health, Engineering, Medicine

Building on a newly rigorous understanding of the building blocks of life, two bioengineering professor are custom engineering peptides, small snippets of proteins, to fight disease.

Tagged: bioengineering, cancer, proteins, Human Health, Engineering, Medicine

A sophisticated combination of vascular imaging and patient-specific computer models can enable doctors to improve diagnosis and predict the outcomes of surgical interventions.

Tagged: bioengineering, cardiovascular disease, modeling, software, Human Health, Engineering