Featured Post from UC Irvine

UCI experts available to discuss Roe v. Wade ruling

Jun 23, 2022

2 min

With the Supreme Court set to rule on Roe v. Wade, UCI would like to provide experts you can reach out to for comment:


• Michele Goodwin, Chancellor of Law at UCI’s School of Law, focuses on constitutional law, torts, health law, and feminist jurisprudence. An internationally renowned pioneer and pathbreaker, She has spoken often to media about reproductive rights issues and the Roe vs. Wade issue. Goodwin has helped to establish the field of health law and subspecialties in law and medicine, including biotechnology and biosciences and the law, as well as race and bioethics. Her scholarship has been cited by courts, congress, civil society organizations, and news media worldwide. If you are interested in speaking with Michele, you can reach her directly at (773) 543- 6160 or mgoodwin@law.uci.edu.




• Aziza Ahmed, UCI professor of law, examines the intersection of law, politics, and science in the fields of constitutional law, criminal law, health law, and family law. Her work advances multiple scholarly conversations including those related to law and social movements, race and the law, and feminist legal theory. You can reach Aziza on her mobile at (510) 778-3031 or coordinate with our team for an interview.



• Charles Anthony “Tony” Smith, UCI professor of political science and law, received his PhD from the University of California-San Diego and his JD from the University of Florida. His research is grounded in the American judiciary but encompasses work in both comparative and international frameworks using a variety of methodologies. The unifying theme of his research is how institutions, and the strategic interactions of political actors relate to the contestation over rights, law & courts, and democracy. He has published seven books and more than 30 articles on the history and politics of the Supreme Court. You can reach Tony via email casmith@uci.edu.


• David Meyer, professor of sociology, political science, and planning, policy & design, can discuss the effect of the decision on political mobilization, especially the anti-abortion and abortion rights movements. He can also talk about those movements and the courts more generally. You can reach David via emaildmeyer@uci.edu.




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1 min

UC Irvine’s Daniele Piomelli provides expert view on federal reclassification of cannabis

As the White House moves to reclassify cannabis under federal law from a schedule I to a schedule III, questions remain about how the change could affect medical use, public health, research, and regulation. UC Irvine’s Daniele Piomelli, PhD, an internationally recognized cannabis researcher, is available to comment on the implications of the policy shift. Piomelli is a distinguished professor of anatomy and neurobiology at the University of California, Irvine, the Louise Turner Arnold Chair in the neurosciences, and director of the UCI Center for the Study of Cannabis. Piomelli has more than 30 years of experience studying cannabis, THC and the endocannabinoid system, with research spanning basic neuroscience, pharmacology and translational science. He is editor in chief of Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research and has testified before the U.S. Senate on cannabis-related research and policy. He can provide perspective on: • What federal reclassification may change for medical cannabis and scientific research • Differences between THC, CBD and other cannabinoids • Potential public health benefits and risks of cannabis legalization • Cannabis exposure and the developing brain, including adolescence • Regulatory and research challenges tied to cannabis policy Piomelli is available for interviews or background conversations. Email: piomelli@hs.uci.edu

4 min

Driving ambition

Motor vehicle crashes remain one of the leading causes of death among teenagers. For the youngest drivers, getting behind the wheel marks freedom but also comes with measurable risk. At the University of California, Irvine, Dr. Federico Vaca, professor and executive vice chair of emergency medicine, is determined to change that trajectory. “Driving licensure among our youngest drivers remains a major life milestone, and it allows for newfound freedom and opportunity for not only youth but their parents as well. At the same time, learning to drive and licensure come at a time when youth are rapidly moving through life with new transitions in school, with friends, and likely exposure to alcohol and drugs,” he says. “Our priority … is to examine the complexities of young driver behavior and to thoroughly understand crash injury risk and crash prevention among this special group of drivers.” Vaca’s work is at the intersection of health, transportation science and policy. A fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine and a researcher at UC Irvine’s Institute of Transportation Studies, he previously served as a medical fellow at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Washington, D.C. His long-standing goal is to prevent the injuries he has seen and treated in emergency departments and trauma centers through rigorous research, using the findings to inform and advance evidence-based programs and policies that save lives on the road. Innovating safety science UC Irvine is home to a new hub for understanding and preventing crash injuries among young drivers, the Brain, Body & Behavior Driving Simulation Lab, founded by Vaca and his interdisciplinary team. At the heart of the B3DrivSim Lab is a high-fidelity, half-cab driving simulator capable of replicating real-world conditions with precision. It uses advanced software to design customized driving scenarios – from complex roadway environments to the inclusion of such human elements as distraction and fatigue – all while capturing real-time video and driving behavior as well as vehicle control metrics. This integration of medicine, behavioral science and engineering enables researchers to measure how developmental and socioecological factors shape driver decisions in unique and consequential ways. The B3DrivSim Lab also represents a growing mentorship ecosystem at UC Irvine. In mid-June, the facility welcomed Siwei Hu, a postdoctoral scholar who earned a Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering, with a focus on transportation studies, at UC Irvine. Hu works closely with Vaca to combine engineering and modeling analytics with behavioral and crash risk insights. The half-cab driving simulator uses advanced software to replicate real-world conditions and design customized driving scenarios – from complex roadway environments to the inclusion of such human elements as distraction and fatigue – all while capturing real-time video and driving behavior as well as vehicle control metrics. Steve Zylius / UC Irvine From the lab to policy Beyond simulation, Vaca’s latest National Institutes of Health-funded study, separate from his lab’s work, takes this philosophy to the national level. His project, “Modeling a National Graduated-BAC Policy for 21- to 24-Year-Old Drivers,” explores whether lowering the legal blood alcohol limit for young adults could reduce alcohol-related crashes and deaths. “When you turn 21, at that very moment, the application of several alcohol-related prevention laws changes in the blink of an eye,” Vaca says. “Before that, the minimum legal drinking age and zero-tolerance laws are in place to protect young drivers from alcohol-impaired driving. Effectively, the second you turn 21, those prevention policies don’t apply, and you’re suddenly allowed to have a much higher blood alcohol concentration in your body that’s intimately tied to serious and fatal crash risk. It’s a very dangerous disconnect.” The study will use national crash data, behavioral surveys and system dynamics modeling to examine how a “graduated BAC policy” might bridge that gap, giving young adult drivers a safer transition into full legal responsibility and saving many more lives. Bridging science, education and prevention Earlier this year, Vaca and his B3DrivSim team joined prevention program educators, policymakers, engineers and law enforcement professionals in Anaheim at a Ford Driving Skills for Life event, part of a Ford Philanthropy-sponsored national effort teaching teens hands-on safe driving techniques – from hazard recognition to impaired-driving awareness. Speaking to more than 130 high school students and their parents from local and distant communities, Vaca emphasized the connection among driving, independence, opportunity and responsibility. That message aligns with his broader initiative, Youth Thriving in Life Transitions with Transportation, which introduces high school students to traffic safety and transportation science and their role in promoting health, education and employment in early adulthood. By linking research and real-world experience, the project empowers youth to see mobility as a foundation for opportunity with safety as its cornerstone. With overall young driver crash fatalities rising 25 percent nationally over the last decade and a 46 percent increase in fatal crashes where a young driver had a BAC of ≥ .01/dL, Vaca’s work represents a crucial step toward reversing that trend. Through a combination of clinical insight and prevention, transportation and data science underscored by community collaboration, he and his team are redefining how researchers and policymakers think about youth driver safety.

5 min

Heart valve developed at UC Irvine shines in early-stage preclinical testing

UC Irvine researchers designed and developed a minimally invasive replacement pulmonary heart valve. Created for pediatric patients, the device can be expanded as children grow, eliminating the need for multiple surgeries. The team successfully conducted laboratory and early-stage animal feasibility testing of the implant, crucial steps toward approval for human use. Irvine, Calif., June 23, 2025 — Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have successfully performed preclinical laboratory testing of a replacement heart valve intended for toddlers and young children with congenital cardiac defects, a key step toward obtaining approval for human use. The results of their study were published recently in the Journal of the American Heart Association. The management of patients with congenital heart disease who require surgical pulmonary valve replacement typically occurs between the ages of 2 and 10. To be eligible for a minimally invasive transcatheter pulmonary valve procedure, patients currently must weigh at least 45 pounds. For children to receive minimally invasive treatment, they must be large enough so that their veins can accommodate the size of a crimped replacement valve. The Iris Valve designed and developed by the UC Irvine team can be implanted in children weighing as little as 17 to 22 pounds and gradually expanded to an adult diameter as they grow. Research and development of the Iris Valve has been supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; and the National Science Foundation. This funding has enabled benchtop fracture testing, which demonstrated the valve’s ability to be crimped down to a 3-millimeter diameter for transcatheter delivery and subsequently enlarged to 20 millimeters without damage, as well as six-month animal studies that confirmed successful device integration within the pulmonary valve annulus, showing valve integrity and a favorable tissue response. “We are pleased to see the Iris Valve performing as we expected in laboratory bench tests and as implants in Yucatan mini pigs, a crucial measure of the device’s feasibility,” said lead author Arash Kheradvar, UC Irvine professor of biomedical engineering. “This work represents the result of longstanding collaboration between our team at UC Irvine and Dr. Michael Recto at Children’s Hospital of Orange County built over several years of joint research and development.”  Congenital heart defects affect about 1 percent of children born in the United States and Europe, with over 1 million cases in the U.S. alone. These conditions often necessitate surgical interventions early in life, with additional procedures required to address a leaky pulmonary valve and prevent right ventricular failure as children grow. The Iris Valve can be implanted via a minimally invasive catheter through the patient’s femoral vein. The Kheradvar group employed origami folding techniques to compress the device into a 12-French transcatheter system, reducing its diameter to no more than 3 millimeters. Over time, the valve can be balloon-expanded up to its full 20-millimeter diameter. This implantation method, along with the ability to begin treatment earlier in very young patients, helps mitigate the risk of complications from delayed care and reduces the need for multiple surgeries in this vulnerable population. “Once the Iris Valve comes to fruition, it will save hundreds of children at least one operation – if not two – throughout the course of their lives,” said Recto, an interventional pediatric cardiologist at CHOC who’s also a clinical professor of pediatrics at UC Irvine. “It will save them from having to undergo surgical pulmonary valve placement, as the Iris Valve is delivered via a small catheter in the vein and can be serially dilated to an adult diameter and also facilitate the future placement of larger transcatheter pulmonary valves – with sizes greater than 20 millimeters, like the Melody, Harmony and Sapien devices – if needed.” Kheradvar said that the next phase of preclinical testing of the Iris Valve is funded by the Brett Boyer Foundation, which is committed to supporting research into treatments for congenital heart disease. “We are actively engaged with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to define and carry out the required experiments and documentation for first-in-human authorization of the Iris Valve,” Kheradvar said. “Our team is urgently advancing the Iris Valve through preclinical studies to enable its clearance for first-in-human use. This is a critical step toward providing toddlers – who currently have no viable minimally invasive treatment until they reach the 45-pound threshold – with a much-needed option.” First co-author Nnaoma Agwu, a biomedical engineering Ph.D. candidate at UC Irvine, said: “The development of the Iris Valve required a strong and knowledgeable team that understood the clinical and mechanical design requirements. This accomplishment would not have been possible without the collaboration of talented clinicians, veterinarians and engineers. With this milestone reached, we are rigorously advancing the Iris Valve’s development, setting our sights on human clinical trials.” Joining Kheradvar, Recto and Agwu as co-authors of the article in Journal of the American Heart Association were Daryl Chau, a recent UC Irvine master’s graduate; Gregory Kelley and Tanya Burney, both research specialists at UC Irvine, with Burney also affiliated with the Beckman Laser Institute; Ekaterina Perminov, a clinical veterinarian with UC Irvine’s University Laboratory Animal Resources; and Christopher Alcantara, a radiology technician at CHOC. About UC Irvine’s Brilliant Future campaign: Publicly launched on Oct. 4, 2019, the Brilliant Future campaign aims to raise awareness and support for the university. By engaging 75,000 alumni and garnering $2 billion in philanthropic investment, UC Irvine seeks to reach new heights of excellence in student success, health and wellness, research and more. The Samueli School of Engineering plays a vital role in the success of the campaign. Learn more by visiting https://brilliantfuture.UC Irvine.edu/the-henry-samueli-school-of-engineering About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UC Irvine has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UC Irvine, visit www.uci.edu. Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus studio with a Comrex IP audio codec to interview UC Irvine faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UC Irvine news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at https://news.uci.edu/media-resources.

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