Research efforts into life-threatening injury and illness have earned international recognition for UW Medicine physicians based at Harborview Medical Center.
Each year, Harborview's faculty and staff attract about $40 million in research dollars from federal and private sources. It is hoped that a recently constructed research and training facility, featuring state-of-the-art equipment throughout five laboratory floors, will help Harborview physicians and research scientists further advance patient care in crucial areas.
- In the area of infectious diseases, scientists at Harborview are studying the history and development of hepatitis C virus infections; immune responses to various sexually transmitted diseases; molecular biology and genetics of syphilis; and clinical research into the neurologic complications of AIDS.
- Research into trauma includes acute lung injury and respiratory infections among immuno-compromised patients; vascular and tissue injury in inflammatory and immune disorders; how cell death in molecular mechanisms cause organ failure; wound repair in individuals with abnormal responses to tissue injuries, including burn patients with excessive scarring.
- Studies in medicine include hormonal effects on obesity; the effects of diabetes on energy homeostasis; and how blood vessel cells affect blood pressure and atherosclerosis.
- In orthopaedics, scientists in the Biomechanics Laboratory design and test automobile devices that may reduce whiplash injury and other problems.
- In psychiatry, gene therapy is used to investigate how serotonin receptors affect depression. Research also centers on molecular mechanisms that determine how brain neurons get wired together early in life
- Neurology researchers are studying brain neuron activity and blood flow to understand stroke, and electrophysiological techniques are used to study traumatic brain injury and epilepsy.