Grace D O'Connell | Research UC Berkeley

Research Bio

Grace O'Connell is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Her research is focused on soft tissue biomechanics and tissue regeneration. Specifically, her goal is to understand the mechanical function of the healthy, degenerated and injured intervertebral discs in order to develop more physiologically relevant repair strategies. Injury, through herniation, or degeneration may lead to debilitating lower back pain. Current research is focused on understanding alterations in biomechanics and tissue remodeling with degeneration and injury. Other studies are focused on using organ culture techniques to directly measure tissue remodeling and potential biological repair strategies.

Research Expertise and Interest

biomechanics, tissue engineering, intervertebral disc, cartilage

In the News

A male patient arrives at the therapy clinic complaining of low back pain. The therapist examines the patient's physical pain in examination room photo.

To Understand Low Back Pain, Researchers Are Looking Closely at How Our Bodies Move

A joint UCSF/Berkeley study aims to make leaps towards individualized treatments for back pain.

Associate professor Grace O'Connell stands next to a ventilator, which is lying on a table in her lab, that she created from a used sleep apnea machine

UC Berkeley team creates respiratory devices from sleep apnea machines

The coronavirus pandemic’s arrival earlier this year prompted Stephen McNally, a videographer for University Development and Alumni Relations (UDAR), to jump on a call with campus researchers discussing how they could turn their labs into workspaces to tackle COVID-19.

CITRIS Invention Lab opens to produce COVID-19 supplies

While UC Berkeley observes California’s shelter-in-place order, with most research labs shuttered, the CITRIS Invention Lab has received a rare exemption to operate the makerspace to fabricate products and prototypes designed to mitigate the COVID-19 crisis, including Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), ventilator adaptors, and materials needed by campus researchers.

Rendering of retrofitted sleep apnea device

Turning sleep apnea machines into ventilators

Converting CPAP and BiPAP machines safely could add tens of thousands to COVID-19 ventilator supply.

Mechanical Engineering To Aid Back Surgery

Lower back pain is not as common as the common cold. But it’s close. About 80 percent of people suffer back pain sooner or later.

How To Grow Back The Back - Engineered Cartilage Surfaces

Researcher Grace O’Connell, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley, is advancing ways to grow human disc tissue — the spongy, protective material between vertebrae — and other engineered cartilage surfaces in a lab.

Five Early-Career Faculty Named Rose Hills Innovators

Five faculty researchers from diverse departments have been selected as the first recipients of support from the new Rose Hills Innovator Program at UC Berkeley.

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.

April 8, 2020

UC Berkeley engineers convert sleep apnea machines into ventilators for COVID-19 patients

San Francisco Chronicle

Madeline Wells

Ventilator SOS, a project co-led by mechanical engineering professor Grace O'Connell, is seeking donations of unwanted CPAP and BiPAP machines from people who may have used them for sleep apnea. They are converting the devices into much-needed ventilators for COVID-19 patients. "Tens of thousands of COVID-19 patients in this country and around the world will need respiratory support in the coming weeks and months," Professor O'Connell says. "We believe that using sleep apnea machines is a viable solution for non-ICU patients. This way, higher-grade ventilators can be reserved for patients with more advanced stages of respiratory disease." For more on the project, see this story at Berkeley Engineering.

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April 7, 2020

First Do No Harm: We Need More (And Better) Ventilators

Forbes

John Osborn

Mechanical engineering professor Grace O'Connell is co-leading a Berkeley effort to convert devices used to treat sleep apnea into much-needed ventilators for COVID-19 patients. In the schematic design she and her team developed, the modified CPAP or BIPAP machine accepts oxygen where ambient air enters the device. The oxygenated air is then filtered and delivered to a patient through an FDA-approved endotracheal tube, with the exhaled air re-filtered before being released. A volunteer community effort led by two students is gathering donated machines for conversion. It's estimated that there are 8-10 million machines available in American households for conversion. And since the devices and the components needed to convert them are readily available, these ventilators could be made available to patients much more quickly than newly manufactured ventilators. For more on this, see this story at Berkeley Engineering.

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