For Ohioans stories

Parents of children with rare, incurable diseases have long had to deal with dual sources of hopelessness: the helpless feeling that their child was sick, and the compounding dread of knowing that few treatments were likely forthcoming. Dr. Krystof Bankiewicz, who has deep roots in the field of gene therapy, helped develop a therapy that is bringing the ability to walk and talk to children around the world who were born with neither.

Within the past decade, cardiologists and other clinicians began to notice a puzzling trend. A small percentage of their patients who had previously been treated for cancers were developing heart conditions. Since then, Ohio State’s Sakima Smith and others in his research program have been making huge strides in the emerging field of cardio-oncology.

In the nearly two years since Nakia Bridges’ concussion, she has regularly experienced severe symptoms such as memory loss, distorted vision and debilitating issues with balance and concentration, to name a few. Not to mention the financial challenges, anxiety and depression that come with forced medical leave from employment. But with help from Ohio State's Lise Worthen-Chaudhari, she's making incredible strides in her recovery.

Organ transplant surgeons have become miracle workers. What for centuries seemed impossible — taking an organ from a dead body and putting it into someone else to save a life — has become reality. But it’s not perfect. Sylvester Black and his colleagues within Ohio State’s COPPER Lab are trying to take transplantation to new levels to help even more people.

After working years as a community advocate for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, Julianna Nemeth was convinced something wasn’t being addressed in treatment programs. So she returned to school for a PhD that would help her become an intervention scientist and create interventions that would pinpoint the needs of survivors.