research-highlights-2025

Theanne Griffith and Sergey Stavisky received the McKnight Scholar Award.

Cameron Sadegh was selected to receive the Hartwell Individual Biomedical Research Award from The Hartwell Foundation.

Theanne Griffith and Elisa T. Zhang were named Freeman Hrabowski Scholars.

Medical Student Arman Fakharian awarded "Daniel T. O’Connor, M.D., Memorial Research Grant."

David Brandman and his team at UC Davis Neuroprosthetics Lab were awarded The Herbert Pardes Clinical Research Excellence Award from the Clinical Research Forum, the top prize awarded to selectees of the annual Top Ten Clinical Research Achievement Awards.

Diana Farmer won the prestigious Edward H. Ahrens, Jr. Award for Outstanding Achievement in Patient-Oriented Research.

Megan Dennis was awarded the 2024 Chancellor’s Fellowship.

Donald M. Bers received a prestigious honorary fellowship from The Physiological Society.

Joseph Galante was invited to join the National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health Council.

Vice Dean for Research Kim E. Barrett won the John Snow Public Health Innovation Prize.

Manuel Navedo named the 2025 recipient of the Robert M. Berne Distinguished Lectureship.

Medical student Ferheen Abbasi earned a prestigious fellowship to help women with endometriosis.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have developed an investigational brain-computer interface that holds promise for restoring the ability to hold real-time conversations to people who have lost the ability to speak due to neurological conditions.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have developed an investigational brain-computer interface that holds promise for restoring the ability to hold real-time conversations to people who have lost the ability to speak due to neurological conditions.

Residents of the University Retirement Community (URC) in Davis have partnered with a UC Davis Health researcher developing digital health solutions for poor gait, which can lead to falls, the leading cause of serious injuries for adults 65 years and older.

Researchers at UC Davis have developed a rapid, noninvasive tool to track the neurons and biomolecules activated in the brain by psychedelic drugs. The new tool could help scientists unlock the benefits of psychedelic treatments like LSD and psilocybin for patients with brain disorders.

Researchers at UC Davis Health and UC San Francisco have identified a molecule known as Maternal Brain Hormone (CCN3) that increases bone density and strength. The new discovery has the potential to treat a variety of bone conditions, including osteoporosis.

The technology, tested in mice, might have the potential to stop the progression of genetic-based neurodevelopmental conditions, such as Angelman syndrome and Rett syndrome before birth.

A University of California, Davis, research team systematically analyzed 40 empirical studies, the majority of which had found that outdoor air pollution is associated with differences in children’s brains. These differences include volumes of white matter, which is associated with cognitive function, connections throughout the brain and even early markers for Alzheimer’s.

Gun-free zones have often been blamed for making schools, malls and other public areas more attractive to shooters; however, in a first of its kind study, researchers at UC Davis Health and other institutions have shown that gun-free zones may, in fact, reduce the risk of mass shootings.

Siblings of autistic children have a 20% chance of being autistic themselves — about seven times higher than the rate in infants with no autistic siblings. That’s the key finding of a new paper by UC Davis MIND Institute researcher Sally Ozonoff and the Baby Siblings Research Consortium.

UC Davis Health’s first-of-its-kind total body scanner EXPLORER is being given yet another new assignment — assessing how cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and other systemic conditions, can affect the brain.