Dan Fletcher holding equipment

Research Expertise and Interest

bioengineering, optical and force microscopy, microfabrication, biophysics, mechanical properties of cells

Research Description

Daniel Fletcher is the Purnendu Chatterjee Chair in Engineering Biological Systems and a professor of Bioengineering. He joined the bioengineering faculty in 2002 and advanced from Associate Professor to Professor in mid 2010. He is also currently serving as Vice Chair for Bioengineering. His research interests include optical and force microscopy, microfabrication, mechanical properties of cells.

In the News

Medical Exams: There’s an App for That

Your cell phone can already find your car and tell you what song the restaurant is playing.  How about an app to screen for eye disease? By coupling the sophisticated imaging capabilities of smart phone cameras with lenses and software for examining the retina, Daniel Fletcher and his students have developed a hand-held, user-friendly version of the optometrist’s ophthalmoscope and are teaming up with clinical collaborators to detect retinal disease caused by diabetes. 

Smartphone Video Microscope Automates Detection of Parasites in Blood

A UC Berkeley-led research team has developed a new mobile phone microscope that uses video to automatically detect and quantify infection by parasitic worms in a drop of blood. This technology could help revive efforts to eradicate debilitating diseases in Africa by providing critical information for health providers in the field.

Featured in the Media

Please note: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or positions of UC Berkeley.
January 12, 2021
Dion Lim and Tim Didion
Bay Area researchers believe a new device has the potential to ramp up the fight against COVID-19. It's designed to diagnose the virus in a fraction of the time, with the help of something you may have in your pocket. All it takes is a marriage of Nobel Prize-winning science and consumer electronics, namely, a cellphone. UC Berkeley bioengineer Dan Fletcher and colleagues at San Francisco's Gladstone Institute of Virology are working hard to develop a COVID-19 test, using a cellphone's camera and CRISPR biotechnology, that can detect the virus in 30 minutes or less. For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News.
December 9, 2020
Ron Leuty
Tapping the expertise of Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and medical smart-phone technology expert Dan Fletcher from UC Berkeley, researchers believe they're on the cusp of a point-of-care COVID test that would deliver results within 30 minutes. For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News.
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