- Revolutionizing organ transplantation
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.
- Better treatment for domestic violence survivors
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.
- Pelotonia fueling breakthrough efforts in cancer battle
In 12 years, Pelotonia has raised more than $225 million. Even with COVID-19 shutdowns in 2020, Pelotonia riders planned their own individual or socially distanced small-group activities and raised $10.5 million. It's also funded these five initiatives that have produced some amazing work and breakthroughs.
- 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.
