U of U Health Sciences Philanthropy

If there’s one constant about the cuttingedge, it’s that it’s always advancing.

AtUniversity of Utah Health, we have long empowered our students and faculty to take the innovative risks that define the future. So it’s no surprise that, on our campus, there’s a visionary approach to recovery that’s ready to be discovered.

We’re the dedicated minds driven to bring a healthier tomorrow within reach.

We’re

pursuing a

future that can’t happen without you.

U of U Health needs your support to achieve the horizon we’re chasing. Here’s how we’ll do it:

FUNDING MAJOR BREAKTHROUGHS

We’re known for our culture of collaboration: we know breakthroughs don’t happen in silos. By fostering partnerships between departments and pursuing authentic interdisciplinary research, we’re generating discoveries that improve lives across the world.

INSPIRING CREATIVITY

Discovery requires creativity. And creativity requires talented collaborators, top-notch facilities, the latest technologies, and so much more. Brilliant researchers come here and stay here to chart the unexplored, and with your help, we can offer them an environment that inspires the improbable.

You’re sparking the unanticipated and the essential.

Powerful change is prompted by powerful partners. It takes people like you—through your generosity, goodwill, and support for great science—to create a healthier future by empowering our scientists. To intervene for those who have been neglected or who are confronting problems they can’t solve alone. To discover what has yet to be imagined.

EMPOWERING TOMORROW’S SCIENTISTS

We’re preparing the next generation of innovators and leaders to rise to the demands of our times. Cross-disciplinary training will equip them to tackle society’s most pressing problems in new ways. But to continue to do this work, we must continually evolve to meet their needs.

So spend some time with our researchers and students whose extraordinary discoveries are changing everything. We want to show you how their work is making strides everywhere and, ultimately, how your generosity can bring their aspirations to life.

Where will your partnership take

Jacob George, PhD, and his diverse team in the NeuroRobotics Lab are pursuing radical and equitable access—one miraculous invention at a time.

Under the glow of the laboratory lights in the Craig H. Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital, a single robotic arm sits on a table. Its fingers extend upward, reaching for a stem of plump grapes. The forefinger and thumb move into the pincher position, ready to pluck a single grape from its cluster. The movement is clean and precise. And it’s being controlled by the human mind.

Jacob George, PhD, is on a mission to harness the power of thought and use it to interact with the devices around us. It’s a vision for a future that he’s determined to build: a landscape where every person can interact with the world without limitations.

It’s the seemingly impossible made possible. And it’s happening at U of U Health. The Luke Arm—a bionic prosthetic named after the one and only Luke Skywalker— has made headlines for its capabilities, throwing George into the national spotlight and raising awareness for the research he and his colleagues are conducting to improve the lives of people with amputations.

“With the Luke Arm, a person thinks about an action, and we translate that into actual movement,” George says. The bionic arm also has sensors that trigger electrical stimulation of residual arm nerves after detecting contact with objects. The brain perceives this as a natural sense of touch, making the prosthetic more responsive and intuitive than virtually anything else available to patients.

“With the Luke Arm, a person thinks about an action, and we translate that into actual movement.”

Though interdisciplinary collaboration is at the center of this groundbreaking work, George contends that there’s something essential that sparks everything. Something that comes before these incredible inventions can make their significant impact. That something is the generosity of private donors like you.

“Small populations like patients with amputations are not a huge market, so it can be challenging to secure the kind of funding to start the work we know is going to make a difference,” George says. Researchers need to demonstrate their innovation’s proof of concept in order to receive substantial and necessary investments, but it’s incredibly difficult to secure that investment from large entities without initial seed funding.

This is the pivotal juncture where you can make the difference for life-changing cures, therapeutic approaches, and interventions— where you can enable this research to become real.

What new future will your gift make possible?

What if video games could rewire your brain

The creative partnership between Shizuko Morimoto, PsyD, and Roger Altizer, PhD, is ushering in a new era for neurological care.

In video games, virtually anything is possible. Whether it’s strolling across the surface of an undiscovered planet or diving to the depths of an unknown ocean, they give us the chance to live entirely new lives. According to researcher Shizuko Morimoto, PsyD, video games might also be one of the most promising ways to address depression in older adult populations.

“It’s like taking a pill with your eyes,” she says.

Morimoto has worked with geriatric patients since 2007, a group that’s often neglected in studies of depression. And because their symptoms tend to resist treatments that can work for other populations, they also face a significant lack of options for effective care. Even in the best circumstances, only 40% of this population responds to typical treatments.

Struck by this gap in care, Morimoto left her impressive clinical career to find solutions, and eventually landed at U of U Health, where she began working alongside Roger Altizer, PhD, the founding director of the Therapeutic Games and Apps lab.

Their most successful treatment thus far? A video game called Neuroflex.

“It’s noninvasive, and it makes a change. And we’re seeing patients get better.”

“She asks questions I wouldn’t ask, and I ask questions she wouldn’t ask.”

Altizer describes the power of his groundbreaking collaboration with Morimoto like this: “She asks questions I wouldn’t ask, and I ask questions she wouldn’t ask. But when we’re together, we ask questions neither of us would ask.” This transdisciplinary synergy has led to one of the first highly efficacious and reliable treatments for depression in older adults—a sudden leap forward for mental health where it has often been overlooked.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Neuroflex is that Morimoto and Altizer designed it so that it can adapt to and treat virtually any cognitive deficit with a brain-related cause.

Learning curves and performance evaluations can be used to optimize the game for any population, which means it may be possible to use Neuroflex to treat a vast range of cognitive conditions.

This has already resulted in a profusion of forthcoming applications, including possibilities for addressing brain fog in long COVID patients, and for alleviating alcohol dependence.

“All we really need is one new collaborator with expertise in a different population and condition, and suddenly we can adapt this technology to treat them,” Morimoto says. “We could be on the precipice of real change that people can truly access, a real third pillar of treatment for the brain.”

The generosity of donors like you is allowing older adults with depression a real chance at fighting their symptoms, a chance they never had before now. And that generosity lives on in every new application.

These kinds of futures—once unimaginable—become possible because of you.

Great scientists are needed everywhere.

A change-maker with a vision: Aaron Ferrell is the next generation of PhD student.

Photo: Charlie Ehlert

Voices reverberate around the room as excitement builds over the discourse of innovative ideas and how they might change the health care landscape. Science and entrepreneurship come together as students across U of U Health disciplines connect to imagine how they might make an impact. The room is bursting with creative energy, and Aaron Ferrell can’t get enough of it.

It’s this synergy—at the intersection of entrepreneurship and research—that inspired the doctoral student to cofound the BioHive Student Chapter at the U. The chapter connects students with BioHive, a collection of more than 1,100 life science and health care companies that represent a powerful innovation ecosystem in Utah’s economy.

Ferrell’s interdisciplinary journey began the moment he applied to the U, under an umbrella program that allowed him to explore his scientific interests across three different departments and to understand the confluence of disciplines at the heart of his work.

While working on his doctorate, Ferrell began to see what was possible when an experienced mentor showed him that his interest in biotechnology could be paired with entrepreneurship. With guidance from his PhD advisor, he began following his interests in industry, applying his training in structural biology to the development of new treatments. The experience led him to wonder if he could create the opportunity for other students to do the same.

“Our goal is to help students establish themselves in their careers before they ever leave school.”

Ferrell co-founded the BioHive Student Chapter with electrical engineering doctoral student Henry Crandall, and Ferrell now serves as its executive director. “Our goal is to help students establish themselves in industry before they ever leave school,” he says. The chapter is inspired by past PhD students who have used their doctoral research as the basis for businesses. In addition, Ferrell says, “many professors have successfully translated their discoveries to industry, forming start-up companies to develop these interventions and get them administered to patients in need.” By drawing on the BioHive Student Chapter to forge deep connections to industry, Ferrell and his peers are finding new ways to apply their skills and knowledge as scientists.

Gifts are the foundation of the training and resources that allow these burgeoning entrepreneurs to tackle their own evolving careers at the highest level of impact. As Ferrell says: “Donors are essential in helping fund the resources that support students who want to fill newly recognized gaps.”

Gifts from donors like you help give rise to the next generation of scientists.

When it comes to the future of discovery, just one can be the catalyst for so much more.

One student to become a leader who recognizes the potential in their peers.

One expert to establish a new treatment for an overlooked population.

One benefactor to help transform a novel idea into a generational advancement.

Already, $500,000 in donor-funded seed grants has led to more than $9 million in federal funding.

So what do you want to see in the world? What do you imagine for the future? It’s likely that there’s a researcher who shares your hopes and is already working toward your vision.

Your gift can empower our university to do what we do best: attract the next generation of talented minds, support their groundbreaking research, and carry your generosity in every step forward and every life that’s changed.