91探花

Over the last 25 years, we have seen some of the greatest advances in medicine in the history of humankind. In the next 25 years, the greatest transformations will come as a result of interdisciplinary collaborations in the areas of clinical care, public health interventions, public policy, technology and more.

The routine distance-vision eye test has long been a staple of public school education in the state of Washington. Yet near-vision problems have not traditionally received the same scrutiny. This will soon change thanks to a new law signed by Gov. Jay Inslee earlier this year. The law grew out of a vision and learning symposium organized in 2014 by Associate Professor Bill Erdly, who helped bring together the experts, advocates and legislators needed to collaboratively develop a solution to the shortcomings of the routine test.

Christopher Brown, a three-time Marine combat veteran and master of social work graduate, created a sustainable local farming organization for veterans in the name of holistic mental health. Growing Veterans, a thriving nonprofit, seeks to transform the lives of veterans through satisfying work and an opportunity to reconnect with one another and their communities to help reduce feelings of isolation and prevent suicide.

Current oral drug therapies for HIV can greatly reduce the presence of the virus in the blood stream. However, limitations prevent these therapies from reducing the presence of HIV in the tissues of a body, and to work in the blood stream, patients must strictly adhere to daily dosing regimens for the rest of their lives. To address these shortcomings, Professor Rodney J. Y. Ho, pharmacy, and Professor Ann Collier, medicine, have partnered to develop a new, seven-day long-lasting HIV therapy that seeks to overcome drug insufficiency in tissues while also improving patient adherence.

Researchers at the UW鈥檚 Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering are developing groundbreaking new medical devices intended to help restore function and mobility in individuals stricken by spinal cord injury or stroke. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, these researchers have developed implantable devices that can detect brain signals and transmit that information to other parts of the body鈥檚 nervous system. The center鈥檚 goal is to develop a successful demonstration of this concept in humans in the next five years, which will then allow regulatory approval to occur for wider dissemination.

The brain has evolved over thousands of years to allow humans to communicate through language. Reading is a relatively new skill for the brain, however, which leads Assistant Professor Jason Yeatman to wonder if dyslexia is a byproduct of visual systems being wired slightly differently in some humans. With the aid of non-invasive brain imaging technology, Yeatman and his team are studying developing brains to identify the changes that occur as reading skills are required. Through this research, they hope to expand treatment options for dyslexia.

People suffering from lung diseases in developing worlds often do not have a good way to track lung functioning without visiting the doctor. Through the work of 91探花researchers, many may soon be able to measure their lung function simply by blowing into any type of phone due to SpiroCall, a new health sensing tool, which was found to meet the medical community鈥檚 standard for accuracy. With this proof of concept in hand, the research team can now plan for additional data collection and determine how to best communicate results to patients.