When Dr. Guido Guglielmi and his UCLA research team introduced a specialized coil that could be threaded through arteries to close off cerebral aneurysms, the advance offered something medicine hadn’t seen before: a means of treating stroke patients that avoided disability and lasting damage to the brain and saved countless lives.
From such life-changing medical breakthroughs to the birth of the internet, UCLA inventions have shaped the modern world in ways few research universities can match. Across disciplines, UCLA scholars have pioneered technologies that have revolutionized communication, transformed health care, expanded access to clean water, advanced our understanding of the universe and improved everyday life for millions.
These Bruin innovations testify to the university’s long-standing mission of turning research into solutions with real-world impact and demonstrate how the Bruin spirit of innovation sparks discoveries that ripple across society and around the globe.
The internet
Room 3420 at UCLA’s Boetler Hall is not just any old classroom. It’s the room where the internet was born.
This innovation shaped life as we know it today, launching us into the future. Nearly all, or 96%, of U.S. adults use the internet today, according to the Pew Research Center. The invention of the internet completely revolutionized how we communicate with each other, the way we access information, how businesses are run and so much more.
On Oct. 29, 1969, distinguished professor of computer science Leonard Kleinrock and graduate student Charley Kline sent the first message ever from one computer to another at the Stanford Research Institute through ARPANET, an early form of what would eventually become the internet. The message was supposed to be the word “LOGIN” but only “LO” was successfully transmitted. Kleinrock would go on to receive the National Medal of Science and be inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame for his pioneering work in building the networks we now use on a daily basis. This innovation truly changed the world — and it all started in a UCLA classroom.
The nicotine patch
Nicotine patches first became available over the counter in 1996 and were key in reducing Americans’ tobacco addiction. The percentage of U.S. adults who reported smoking cigarettes in the prior week fell from 43% in 1972 to just 11% in 2024, according to Gallup. This trend reflects a massive improvement in public health as smoking can lead to cancer, heart disease, lung disease and other detrimental effects.
Dr. Murray Jarvik, the late professor emeritus of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the UCLA School of Medicine, pioneered the study of the effects of drugs on mood and behavior, especially focusing on tobacco dependence. He was joined by then-UCLA postdoctoral researcher Jed Rose and his brother, Dr. Daniel Rose, to investigate the effects of absorbing tobacco through the skin. The resulting patch, which reduces cravings by implementing controlled nicotine doses, helped pave the way for people who want to kick the tobacco habit.
The brain on sleep: To build, then declutter
Taking that mid-afternoon nap might not be such a bad idea.
Led by Gina Poe, a professor of integrative biology and physiology, and Van Savage, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and of computational medicine, a UCLA-led research team used data from more than 60 sleep studies involving humans and other mammals and in 2020 developed a mathematical model to explain how sleep changes with brain and body size. When babies experience REM sleep, their brains build crucial synapses, which allow neurons to connect and communicate with each other. But after the age of around 2 1/2, the purpose of sleep shifts from brain building to maintenance. Because damaged neurons can only be repaired during sleep, a chronic lack of sleep likely contributes to long-term health problems including cognitive disorders and diabetes.
“I fought sleep and pulled all-nighters when I was in college, and now think that was a mistake,” Savage said. “I would have been better off with a good night’s sleep.”
Practical process of reverse osmosis
If you don’t like your water salty, you have UCLA to thank.
In 1959, a UCLA team became the first to demonstrate reverse osmosis, a process that has become the most popular way to separate salt water from seawater. In the lab of Professor Samuel Yuster, students Sidney Loeb and Srinivasa Sourirajan developed a durable, flexible membrane that was able to reject salt water and pass fresh water at reasonable flow rates and realistic pressures.
With both global and local impacts, its applications range from home water filtration to enabling large facilities to produce trillions of gallons of fresh water in the Middle East and North Africa.
Over the last century, water use has increased at more than twice the rate of global population growth — making the legacy of this invention all the more powerful.
PET scanner
Positron emission tomography (PET) scanners are instrumental in visualizing biochemical processes and identifying abnormalities that might otherwise not be visible. They have been tremendously helpful in cancer detection, and have helped doctors develop better treatment plans, monitor their effectiveness and generally make more informed assessments.
In the 1980s, UCLA Medical Center became the first to provide clinical PET services. The PET scanner was co-invented by now-retired UCLA professor molecular and medical pharmacology Michael Phelps.
Identifying new exoplanets
UCLA astronomers identified 366 new exoplanets — planets outside our solar system. Their findings, described in a 2021 paper, included the discovery of a planetary system made up of a star and at least two gas giants, which are about the size of Saturn, in abnormally close proximity.
Postdoctoral scholar Jon Zink developed an algorithm that distinguished signals indicating planetary candidates from background noise, making planet detection more efficient and less time-consuming. Zink and UCLA astronomy professor Erik Petigura pioneered this research using data from the NASA Kepler Space Telescope’s K2 mission.
“The catalog and planet detection algorithm that Jon and the Scaling K2 team devised is a major breakthrough in understanding the population of planets,” Petigura said. “I have no doubt they will sharpen our understanding of the physical processes by which planets form and evolve.”
Identifying the first case of AIDS
The first AIDS diagnosis in the world was made at UCLA Medical Center. In 1981, UCLA physician and immunologist Michael Gottlieb was teaching an immunology exercise when he learned of a man admitted to the emergency department with unexplained fevers and a rare pneumonia. That June, Gottlieb published the first report of an unnamed disease attacking the immune systems of a cluster of five young men. That same year, there would be 337 reported cases of similar immune system damage in the U.S.
UCLA’s work and initiatives like the UCLA AIDS Institute, founded in 1992, have paved the way for treatments, including some of the first clinical trials of AZT and other anti-HIV drugs; prevention strategies; and cure research.
An estimated 1.3 million people worldwide contracted HIV in 2024, according to the World Health Organization.
Smartphone microscope
If you’re in need of a laboratory-grade microscope, look no further than your cellphone pocket. That’s not a joke — not since a UCLA engineering professor made this possible.
The mobile phone-based microscope was created with the goal of providing access to scientific readings, such as virus and bacteria detection, without the need for large, expensive lab equipment. This device, which weighs less than half a pound, could enable more accurate, high-quality medical diagnostics in resource-poor regions and reduce the expense of building high-level equipment.
Aydogan Ozcan, the Volgenau Professor of Engineering Innovation in the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, invented the prototype of this lensless imaging platform. And to compensate for the image quality gap between smartphone camera sensors and high-end lab equipment lenses, Ozcan and his team used deep learning — a form of artificial intelligence — to enhance microscopic resolution and color details in smartphone photos. This has helped this mobile, low-cost photography yield results that are increasingly closer to the level of detail in a high-end microscope, which could help shape the future of global health technology.
Guglielmi detachable coils – a transformation in brain aneurysm treatment
The Guglielmi detachable coil dramatically changed how doctors could treat cerebral aneurysms, offering a minimally invasive option that has spared brain damage and disability and saved countless lives.
Dr. Guido Guglielmi came to UCLA in 1989. He and a research team invented a detachable coil that can be deployed instead of physically opening patients’ skulls by threading the spiraling wires, which are thinner than strands of hair, through the arteries to close off aneurysm sites. Since earning FDA approval in 1995, the procedure has had a tremendous impact on health, allowing for a more rapid recovery. This revolutionary advancement not only changed neurosurgical practice but paved the way for other groundbreaking procedures, such as mechanical thrombectomy, which is used to remove blood clots from blood vessels.
Identifying how the brain links memories – and how an HIV drug can combat memory loss
Brains often record memories in groups rather than in isolation, linking related experiences together so a recollection can trigger others that connect chronologically. The ability to do this typically diminishes with age, but UCLA researchers discovered a way to potentially restore this function. This could strengthen memory in middle age and provide early intervention for dementia, which affected 57 million people in 2021, according to the World Health Organization.
Alcino Silva, a distinguished neurobiology and psychiatry professor at the Geffen School of Medicine, has found that as people age, the amount of CCR5 gene expressed in the brain increases, reducing memory recall. To counteract memory loss, the team explored the effects of maraviroc, a drug that targets CCR5 to slow HIV progression in patients. When researchers gave maraviroc to older mice, the drug suppressed the gene and the mice were able to resume linking memories.
Continued research into CCR5 and maraviroc, including by Dr. S. Thomas Carmichael, chair of the neurology department, could open the door to restoring key brain connections.
