The federal government has awarded the company funding and put it on a fast track for FDA approval.
BERKELEYSIDE – November 18, 2025
There could be a new and easy treatment to rehabilitate stroke patients, if a Berkeley startup is successful. The biotech company, Magnetic Tides, is working on a brain stimulation technology using magnetic fields that is non-invasive.
Magnetic Tides is now taking sign-ups for clinical trials of its treatment for stroke patients.
Each year, more than 795,000 people in the United States have a stroke — equivalent to one stroke every 40 seconds. Every 3 minutes and 14 seconds, someone dies of stroke. Those who survive are often left with mobility challenges and other serious long-term disabilities.
Research into potential stroke rehabilitation therapies — from pharmaceuticals to electrical stimulation to robot-assisted gait training devices — continues to yield creative new approaches. But a key gap remains: the lack of a non-invasive device capable of targeting the brain for chronic stroke recovery.
Magnetic Tides was co-founded in 2019 by three UC Berkeley scientists: Ludovica Labruna, the CEO; Daniel Sheltraw, the chief technology officer, and Richard Ivry, a professor of psychology and neuroscience.
Labruna came from Italy in 2006 to UC Berkeley for the final months of her Ph.D. to collaborate with Ivry in his Cognition and Action Lab. She ended up working in his lab for more than 15 years using various types of brain stimulation devices in their research.
“Working with the non-invasive brain stimulation devices that were on the market, we weren’t able to replicate a lot of studies,” said Labruna. “I got very frustrated and I went to Daniel Sheltraw, who has expertise in magnetic resonance physics, and I asked him, ‘How can we improve these devices?’ And he told me, you can’t do it. You have to build your own.”
And so they have.
From lab to startup
Federal innovation grants funded the development of a prototype device at UC Berkeley. Then Ivry, Labruna and Sheltraw founded Magnetic Tides with two goals: to develop a device that would better serve both scientific research and stroke patients. In 2022, Magnetic Tides won a National Institutes of Health (NIH) small business grant, which allowed them to spin out from the university and build more advanced generations of the device. Then they made sure it was tolerable by healthy individuals and tested the efficacy in physiological and behavioral studies.
Magnetic Tides has the exclusive licensing rights to the UC Berkeley patent for a new non-invasive brain stimulation technology called kilohertz transcranial magnetic perturbation, or kTMP. Put simply, kTMP uses magnetic fields to mimic natural electrical signals in the brain.
The result? Consistent, observable increases in people’s cortical excitability — that is, how ready neurons are to fire within the brain — following just a 10-minute session. That’s according to a peer-reviewed study of young, healthy individuals published in September.
Can this help stroke patients?
Increases in excitability could indicate an increase in neuroplasticity, or the brain’s ability to change and adapt, explained Ivry.
“The basic logic here is, can we turn the brain into one of those states of heightened plasticity or heightened learning as a way to recover from stroke?” Ivry said.
“If we can mimic natural brain function with our stimulation, we might put the brain into a greater state of plasticity, aiming to restore the neural rhythms disrupted by the stroke.” The stimulation parameters are derived from years of research by UCSF neurologist Professor Karunesh Ganguly, who is now collaborating with Magnetic Tides.
As Labruna explains, the company focuses not only on a device with high efficacy but also on the patient experience. Current rehabilitation treatments can be invasive, poorly targeted, and difficult for patients to tolerate. Magnetic Tides addresses these issues by developing a solution that is highly tolerable and delivers faster results with a high percentage of recovery.
Over the last two years the team has conducted extensive safety testing with the device, and released a paper in September. Pilot studies, involving around 400 participants, including 20 chronic stroke patients, have shown that kTMP stimulation does not bother the patient. It is imperceptible, with patients reporting no side effects, discomfort or sensations whatsoever. The data enabled Magnetic Tides to win a second grant to launch their chronic stroke trial in Ganguly’s lab at UCSF.
Watch a short interview with trial subjects.
Government support
Another milestone for Magnetic Tides came this past summer, when the U.S. Food & Drug Administration granted Breakthrough Device Designation to kTMP for its potential to improve arm and hand function in chronic stroke patients.
The designation signifies the FDA’s recognition of kTMP’s potential to be a more effective treatment for chronic stroke patients than what’s currently available in the market. Devices must also meet rigorous standards for safety and effectiveness.
As a result of the designation, the FDA will expedite development and regulatory review, with the goal of getting this potentially life-changing technology to patients faster.
Beyond stroke rehabilitation
kTMP’s potential isn’t limited to stroke rehabilitation. In September 2025, Magnetic Tides announced that they received another grant from the NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health to expand their research to treating major depressive disorder. Labruna said she expects exploratory trials to begin at UCSF in early 2026 in collaboration with Professor Andrew Krystal, another game-changer in the field.
It doesn’t stop with psychiatric conditions, either. If current research into neuroplasticity is any indication, everyone stands to benefit from therapeutics like kTMP.
“At one time there were five to ten startups in San Francisco that were producing non-invasive brain stimulation methods for cognitive enhancement,” said Ivry.
“There’s one of the great teams in the Tour de France that puts on their non-invasive brain stimulation devices after every race. I’m sure there’s many people exploring that side of it. But we really want to make a difference in chronic stroke.”
And if all goes well, patients may not have to wait as long as they think. Labruna says Magnetic Tides hopes to have kTMP treating stroke rehabilitation patients in clinical settings within three years.
Berkeley-born and bred
From its origin in UC Berkeley’s Cognition and Action Lab to its current startup headquarters at 2397 Shattuck Ave (near Channing Street), Magnetic Tides has been based in Berkeley. Sheltraw said the company explored other options, but couldn’t resist the pull of Downtown Berkeley and its proximity to UC Berkeley’s innovation ecosystem.
They were also charmed by the space itself: a second-floor office with room for a workbench, where Sheltraw will assemble the fourth generation of the device, as well as an area to see patients.
“In the balance of things, Berkeley was just a better place for us — not only the space, but also the location with respect to everything that we need,” Sheltraw said.
If the city’s plans for Berkeley’s commercial areas pay off, Magnetic Tides won’t be alone in their decision. The Office of Economic Development manages the Berkeley Startup Cluster (BSC), a public-private partnership that aims to make Berkeley an attractive place for startups to launch and grow. A focus area for BSC in recent years has been updating the City of Berkeley’s zoning codes for research and development to make it easier to keep innovation in Berkeley.
In January 2025, updated zoning codes went into effect allowing research and development companies in spaces under 20,000 square feet in Downtown Berkeley and other commercial corridors. Magnetic Tides was one of the first companies to take advantage of the updated zoning. Also, a 2019 city council action exempts startups that receive R&D grants, like Magnetic Tides, from local taxation.
Recruiting the next generation: The city is establishing partnerships designed to build a local workforce pipeline for these startups. OED partners with Cal State University-East Bay’s Institute for STEM Education and Berkeley High School to organize “STEM CareerX” tours — the latest one was Oct. 29 at Magnetic Tides — exposing National Society of Black Engineers, Jr. students to local technology startups so they can see how STEM skills apply to real-world careers.
Labruna summed up the startup experience for herself, as well as many other entrepreneurs in Berkeley.
“The journey from a bench scientist dedicated to lab research to an entrepreneur launching a startup has been an incredible adventure,” she said. “It’s particularly exciting to be doing this work in Berkeley, because people here come from everywhere in the world, and interacting with this diverse ecosystem truly opens your mind. We were able to gather the best team here, and together, we are making things happen.”
WHAT NEXT
- If you or someone you know is interested in accelerating motor recovery due to a stroke, sign up for Magnetic Tides’ clinical trials with UCSF, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
- Subscribe to the Berkeley Startup Cluster newsletter to learn about other innovative Berkeley R&D companies — and events, news and policies impacting Berkeley startups.
- Visit Discovered in Berkeley to find more stories about innovative local businesses.
