A "breathalyzer" that noninvasively determines if patients have unsafe levels of ammonia in their blood. The discovery of a previously approved drug that also fights the Dengue virus. A smartphone-based eye-imaging system that can be used to diagnose vision problems remotely.
These are a few of the 40-plus inventions and clinical solutions presented at the first annual Spectrum Innovation Research Symposium, held last Friday at the Stanford School of Medicine. The event demonstrated the power of bringing together teams of physicians, bioinformaticists and engineers to apply new technologies and ideas to challenging medical problems. Also showcased were budding physician-scientists supported by the Spectrum KL2 and TL1 clinical research training awards. (In the photo above, Colleen Craig, MD, an endocrinology fellow, describes a novel treatment that she's developing for gastric-bypass patients who suffer from severely low blood sugar.)
The buzz is that it's going to be a good year for health-care breakthroughs
Spectrum, the recipient of Stanford's NIH Clinical and Translational Science Award, annually gives up to $50,000 to investigator teams for year-long projects in the areas of drug discovery, medical technologies, predictives/diagnostics, population health sciences and community engagement. This program also provides these teams with training and mentoring to help them move their ideas rapidly from bench to bedside and into the community.
"These modest pilot awards have been immensely successful in stimulating innovative ideas across the spectrum of translational research," said Spectrum's director, Harry Greenberg, MD. "They have lead to new inventions that promote individual's health, new ways of improving the health of the populations and new efforts to assist our surrounding community on health issues."
As this year's grantees were rolling up their poster presentations, next year's scholars were rolling up their sleeves to finish their 2014-15 Spectrum grant proposals, which are due in a few days.
It's been a pivotal year in medical technology, with the launch of an unprecedented number of game-changing inventions, such as the Mini-ION, a $900 USB-powered DNA sequencer, and Apple HealthKit, a health-and-fitness dashboard and developer kit. In the coming year, these will provide Stanford scholars with amazing technology platforms from which to launch medical solutions that are better, faster and cheaper.
"We are in the middle of amazing biomedical innovation here in Silicon Valley," said Atul Butte, MD, PhD, and faculty director of the diagnostics/predictives program. "Spectrum enables us to fund the earliest of early technologies, more risky than even the usual angel investments, but with higher potential impacts. In the end, this gets technologies to patients and families that much sooner."
Because of this, anticipation among the grant-approval committee members at the symposium was high -- the buzz is that it's going to be a good year for health-care breakthroughs.
Previously: Spectrum awards innovation grants to 23 projects, Stanford awarded more than $45 million to spur translational research in medicine, As part of annual tradition, budding physician-scientists display their work, and New class of physician-scientists showcase research
Photo by Kris Newby
