- Recruiting your own immune system to fight cancer
When traditional means of fighting cancer — surgery, chemotherapy — don’t work, doctors sometimes try a more novel approach: immuno-oncology or immunotherapy. Currently, only about 20% of cancer patients are able to use immunotherapy to fight cancer. But that number is rising, according to Dr. Zihai Li, founding director of Ohio State’s Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology (PIIO).
- VR training helping disaster response
Doug Danforth and Nick Kman have developed a VR training tool to help teach Ohio State’s medical students, emergency medicine residents, and first responders SALT triage. Danforth, who has a background in designing VR simulations for medical students, and Kman, a FEMA first responder and professor of emergency medicine, collaborated with other medical center faculty and designers from the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD).
- Video games with a healing touch
How can gaming technology — or virtual reality — be a rehabilitation tool that engages someone recovering from a traumatic brain injury? How can it get them to enjoy the rigorous work? That’s the world Lise Worthen-Chaudhari lives in. Her revolutionary gaming therapy, Embedded Arts, helps patients recovering from brain injuries increase their range of motion control by creating abstract art through motion sensors.
- SAGE advice for aging brains
What if there’s a test that spots the early signs of mental deterioration, such as Alzheimer’s and dementia? Turns out, a doctor at Ohio State has developed such a system. The SAGE test is uncomplicated, nearly 80 percent effective, free and, most importantly, can help diagnose cognitive issues early, which leads to better treatment.
- Convergence creates innovation
Back pain is the most debilitative condition worldwide, affecting more than 1.3 billion people. In the United States, the painful affliction causes more than 100,000 workdays to be lost and $100 billion in expenses to treat. It’s also the No. 1 reason people take opioids. Why is back pain such a difficult problem to treat?
- Project keeps communities together through unrest
Brining programs, training and solutions to communities to help people deal constructively with political unrest and conflict — and address the underlying issues — is what drove the Divided Community Project to be created at The Ohio State University.
