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Bruinventions | 7 of the top 25 belong to CNSI members
By Delan Bruce | Illustrations by Vidhya Nagarajan
This article was originally published by UCLA Magazine
Everyone knows UCLA is the birthplace of the internet. It’s where doctors treated the first AIDS patients before the disease even had a name. Where the world’s first reverse osmosis membrane was developed. You may know that Professor Paul Terasaki invented the tissue-typing test that became an international standard for matching potential organ donors with recipients. Even the inventor of the automatic bagel machine was a Bruin. UCLA students, faculty and alumni have a long history of creativity and innovation. And that hasn’t stopped in the 21st century, with Bruins continuing to make their mark via scientific discovery, technological wizardry, medical marvels and ingenious gadgets.
Here, we present a list of 25 of the most fascinating and novel advancements given life by UCLA since 2000. As you peruse this index of ingenuity, keep track of the number of Bruinventions you were already aware of before reading — there’s a scorecard at the end.
The annual list, compiled by international data and analytics firm Clarivate, recognizes scholars whose published work ranks in the top 1% of global citations over the past 11 years. These citation metrics serve as an indicator of broad, lasting influence within and across fields and underscore UCLA’s strength as a hub for transformative, high-impact research.
1. National Shade Map (2025)
Inventor: Kelly Turner and colleagues at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation
UCLA Connection: Turner is an associate professor and associate director of the Luskin Center of Innovation within the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs
Why It Matters: Available through American Forests’ Tree Equity Score platform, the map shows where shade exists in 101 of the largest urbanized areas in the country. Extreme heat contributes to 12,000 premature deaths each year; the resource reveals widespread “shade deserts” in practically all major metropolitan areas and shows where — and why — we need to plant more trees.
2. Hollywood Diversity Report (2014)
Inventor: Darnell Hunt M.A. ’91, Ph.D. ’94 and Ana-Christina Ramón
UCLA Connection: Hunt is UCLA’s executive vice chancellor and provost, and former dean of the Division of Social Sciences; Ramón is the director of the Entertainment and Media Research Initiative at UCLA.
Why It Matters: The report generates research analyses of the inclusion of diverse groups in various capacities in film and television. It shows the invaluable link between diversity and the bottom line in the entertainment industry.
3. The world’s first electric-powered full-size helicopter (2016)
Inventor: Martine Rothblatt ’77, M.B.A. ’81, J.D. ’81
UCLA Connection: Futurist and biotech CEO Rothblatt is a triple Bruin and a recipient of the UCLA Medal.
Why It Matters: Rothblatt’s helicopter established new world records of a 30-minute duration flight and an 800-foot altitude, as well as the speed record for an electric chopper. A typical helicopter produces 43 times more CO2 per hour than a car; Rothblatt’s innovation makes for a quieter, zero-carbon flight.
4. Breast cancer drug Ibrance (palbociclib) (2015)
Inventor: Dennis Slamon and Richard Finn
UCLA Connection: Slamon is a professor and chief of hematology-oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Finn is a professor of hematology-oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Why It Matters: Ibrance has transformed the treatment of estrogen–receptor positive (ER+) and HER2–negative (HER2-) breast cancer, giving hope to hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide.
5. The Equatic carbon removal process (2021)
Inventor: Gaurav Sant
UCLA Connection: Sant is the Pritzker Professor of Sustainability at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering.
Why It Matters: Sant’s process removes carbon dioxide from seawater while producing carbon-negative hydrogen, a clean fuel — all of which combats climate change. Equatic is building North America’s first commercial-scale, ocean-based carbon removal facility.
6. Benjilock, the world’s first hybrid fingerprint padlock (2014)
Inventor: Robbie Cabral ’08
UCLA Connection: Founder/CEO Cabral is a music business program alum.
Why It Matters: After securing investment on ABC’s Shark Tank, Benjilock has gone on to redefine security, leveraging its patented fingerprint-recognition technology.
7. Dataland, the world’s first museum of AI arts (Opens 2026)
Inventor: Refik Anadol M.F.A. ’14
UCLA Connection: Anadol is an alum and a lecturer in the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.
Why It Matters: Dataland will be located at The Grand L.A. development next to the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Broad Museum and Walt Disney Concert Hall. The museum promotes “ethical AI” — Anadol secured permission for all source material from partners such as the Smithsonian and London’s Natural History Museum for his AI-model training — and the use of renewable energy sources.
8. Producing cancer-fighting immune cells (2025)
Inventor: Led by Theodore Scott Nowicki, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics, hematology/oncology
UCLA Connection: The study features collaboration with UCLA doctors Antoni Ribas, Owen Witte, Donald Kohn and Lili Yang.
Why It Matters: With a first-of-its-kind clinical trial, UCLA scientists have shown it’s possible to reprogram a patient’s blood-forming stem cells to generate a continuous supply of functional T cells, the immune system’s most powerful cancer-killing agents. The research points to a future where doctors don’t just treat cancer — they actively prevent it from recurring.
9. Cortisol-sensing smartwatch (2022)
Inventor: Sam Emaminejad (associate professor, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering) and Anne Andrews (professor of psychiatry & biobehavioral sciences, chemistry & biochemistry, and bioengineering)
UCLA Connection: Built on UCLA’s multidisciplinary advances in wearable molecular biosensors (Emaminejad Lab) and thin-film field-effect transistor sensing (Andrews Lab), this innovation was co-led by two alumni researchers (Bo Wang M.S. ’14, Ph.D. ’16 and Chuanzhen Zhao M.S. ’17, Ph.D. ’20) under the supervision of their faculty advisors.
Why It Matters: A key biomarker for mental health monitoring is cortisol, a known stress hormone; traditionally, cortisol levels have been evaluated through blood samples in professional labs. The watch is a far less invasive technology that achieves the same result.
10. SEM Scanner for preventing bedsores (2020)
Inventor: Barbara Bates-Jensen, William Kaiser and Majid Sarrafzadeh
UCLA Connection: Bates-Jensen is a professor in the UCLA Joe C. Wen School of Nursing; Kaiser and Sarrafzadeh are professors in the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering.
Why It Matters: The scanner measures moisture beneath the skin, a biophysical marker of early tissue damage, and can detect early-stage pressure injuries up to 10 days before damage is even visible. It’s estimated that the SEM Scanner has been used on more than a million patients and prevented 50,000 pressure injuries.
11. Pelage hair loss treatment (2025)
Inventor: Heather Christofk ’01, Michael Jung and William Lowry
UCLA Connection: Christofk is an alum and a professor of biological chemistry; Jung is a distinguished professor of chemistry; Lowry is a professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology.
Why It Matters: The Pelage co-founders’ research breakthrough activates hair growth through a first-in-class mechanism that targets the metabolism of hair follicle stem cells. Funded by investment from Google Ventures, Phase 2a clinical trials are showing positive results for Pelage’s PP405 topical hair loss therapy.
12. Immunosuppression-Free Kidney Transplant Program (2021)
Inventor: UCLA Health
UCLA Connection: It’s UCLA Health! Once again ranked the No. 1 hospital in California and Los Angeles by U.S. News & World Report
Why It Matters: UCLA Health is the first medical center in the world to offer retroactive kidney transplant tolerance. In standard organ transplants, recipients must take several antirejection drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent the immune system from rejecting the new organ. These drugs often have harmful side effects that may also end up damaging the transplanted kidney. The UCLA procedure uses donor stem cells and radiation therapy to help the immune system accept a transplanted kidney.
13. Power-efficient solar device (2018)
Inventor: Yang Yang
UCLA Connection: Yang holds UCLA’s Carol and Lawrence E. Tannas Jr. Endowed Chair in Engineering.
Why It Matters: Through NSF-supported research, UCLA engineers developed a dual-layer solar cell, which converts 22.4% of incoming energy from the sun — a record for this type of cell. The increased efficiency translates to cheaper energy.
14. Popsy device for opening safety-sealed pill packs (2024)
Inventor: Veronica Pellegrino
UCLA Connection: Pellegrino is a registered nurse in the orthopedic unit at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center.
Why It Matters: Popsy is expected to potentially save nurses millions of work hours each year by allowing them to safely and efficiently open pills wrapped in foil, paper and plastic packaging.
15. Siri, the first widespread AI voice assistant (2010)
Inventor: Adam Cheyer M.S. ’93
UCLA Connection: Cheyer, a UCLA alum, is co-founder of Siri Inc.
Why It Matters: In many ways, Siri was a forerunner of the conversational artificial intelligence assistant model that represents the cutting edge of today’s popular AI platforms, like ChatGPT. Siri was formed by Apple for iOS in 2010 and was the first intelligent voice assistant to reach a wide audience. At its peak, Siri was actively used on more than half a billion devices.
16. IntelliSep early detection sepsis test (2023)
Inventor: Cytovale
UCLA Connection: Bioengineering alum Henry Tse Ph.D. ’12 co-founded Cytovale with UCLA Bioengineering Department Chair Dino Di Carlo.
Why It Matters: IntelliSep is designed to help clinicians recognize sepsis in patients by providing test results from a blood draw in less than 10 minutes. Sepsis is the No. 1 cause of death in U.S. hospitals and kills 11 million people globally each year.
17. PearlPAK, a prescription for preserving brain health during menopause (2020)
Inventor: Rhonda Voskuhl
UCLA Connection: Voskuhl is the faculty neurologist for the UCLA Comprehensive Menopause Care Program.
Why It Matters: Up to two-thirds of women experience menopause-related cognitive impairment, or “brain fog.” Voskuhl discovered that treatment with a novel estrogen could induce cognitive improvement and prevent brain atrophy.
18. Sustainable, cell-free enzyme technology (2019)
Inventor: Jim Bowie, Tyler Korman and Paul Opgenorth
UCLA Connection: Bowie, Korman and Opgenorth conducted synthetic biochemical research at UCLA before co-founding eXoZymes.
Why It Matters: eXoZymes engineers cell-free biosynthesis to create sustainable chemicals and fuels. The goal is to produce molecules and chemicals for a range of applications: flavors and fragrances, sustainable aviation fuel, nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals.
19. The first in-human bladder transplant (2025)
Inventor: Nima Nassiri, with assistance from Inderbir Gill, founding executive director of the University of Southern California Institute of Urology
UCLA Connection: Nassiri is a urologic transplant surgeon and the director of the UCLA Vascularized Composite Bladder Allograft Transplant Program.
Why It Matters: Millions of people around the globe experience some degree of bladder disease and dysfunction. Current treatments use a portion of a patient’s intestine to create a new bladder, which comes with risks; Nassiri’s new bladder transplant technique circumvents some of these short- and long-term issues.
20. Sliimeyhoney’s gourmet slime (2020)
Inventor: Mark Lin ’25
UCLA Connection: Lin, founder of Sliimeyhoney, graduated with a degree in business and economics.
Why It Matters: Lin appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank and successfully secured investment for Sliimeyhoney the summer before his first year at UCLA. He has gone on to sell more than 100,000 slimes — fun, sensory forms of stress relief — to customers all over the world.
21. Stem cell cure for ADA-SCID (Severe combined immunodeficiency due to adenosine deaminase deficiency) (2009)
Inventor: Donald Kohn
UCLA Connection: Kohn is a pediatric bone marrow transplant physician at UCLA’s Broad Stem Cell Research Center.
Why It Matters: Kohn’s experimental form of gene therapy has successfully treated 59 of 62 children born with a rare and deadly inherited disorder that leaves them without an immune system. He is applying similar therapy techniques to other rare immune disorders and is developing methods to make gene therapies more efficient and affordable.
22. Designing jewelry faster with AI (2023)
Inventor: Blng AI
UCLA Connection: Former UCLA architecture student Dumëne Comploi and his wife created the Blng app.
Why It Matters: Jewelry design is often complex, requiring multiple iterations. In contrast, the Blng app takes mere seconds to transform sketches, drawings or keywords into photorealistic renderings. Since winning the LVMH Innovation Award last year, Blng is working with Tiffany & Company.
23. Peace, Inc.: the world’s first privacy-on-demand service (2022)
Inventor: Sharon Chen ’06
UCLA Connection: Chen, a business economics alumna, is co-founder of Peace, Inc.
Why It Matters: Peace Pods were conceived of as convenient and affordable meeting rooms (they can seat four people at a time), suitable for Zoom calls, focused work or study, or restorative solitude. Six Peace Pods serve the UCLA campus. The sound-dampened smart pods, equipped with adjustable lighting and cooling, have soothed more than 110,000 customers globally.
24. Sign-language translation glove (2020)
Inventor: Jun Chen
UCLA Connection: Chen is an associate professor of bioengineering
Why It Matters: The wearable glovelike device can translate American Sign Language into English speech in real time through a smartphone app. Previous wearable systems that offered translation from American Sign Language were limited by bulky and heavy device designs and were uncomfortable to wear.
25. Prostate cancer drugs Xtandi and Erleada (2012, 2018)
Inventor: Michael Jung
UCLA Connection: Jung is the Walter and Shirley Wang Endowed Professor in Medicinal Drug Discovery in the UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Why It Matters: Seventy percent of men older than 70 have some cancerous cells in their prostate. More than 1 million men with advanced prostate cancer have been treated with Xtandi since its approval in 2012. Erleada is a once-daily, single-tablet treatment taken by more than 200,000 patients worldwide to date. Both medicines have proven, life-extending benefits.