Feature Story
Health Center Today, April 9, 2010
Renowned Cardiologist First Speaker at Raisz Lectureship
By Chris DeFrancesco
Dr. Lawrence Raisz, accepts a plaque commemorating his lifetime of service to the Health Center from Dr. Henry Kranzler.
Photo by Matt Cook
At the premiere of a visiting lectureship established in his honor, Dr. Lawrence Raisz accepted a plaque commemorating his lasting contributions to the Health Center.
More than 100 clinical faculty members joined him at the inaugural Lawrence G. Raisz, M.D., Visiting Lectureship in Clinical and Translational Science April 8, celebrating a lifetime of service that created his legacy as one of the world’s preeminent experts in osteoporosis and metabolic bone disease.
The featured guest speaker was Dr. Eric Topol, nationally renowned cardiologist and geneticist from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. His talk, “Medicine Goes Digital: How Genomics and Wireless Will Change the Future of Health Care,” focused on how the rapid advancement of genome science can further individualize drug therapies and how 21st-century technology has evolved to where portable wireless devices can be used as health monitors that provide more reliable data.
For example, he described a device being tested now that’s an alternative to a Holter monitor, which monitors heart activity through electrodes attached to the chest for at least 24 hours. The new device, which resembles a typical-sized adhesive bandage, records heart activity as well as temperature, respiratory rate, and fluid status. And because of its non-intrusive nature, patients can wear it for a week.
"These ‘band-aids’ that avoid wires and capture a considerable amount of information are a really exciting chance in medicine," Topol says. "This is a real opportunity to use wireless sensors to get a much better handle on chronic diseases, and hopefully segue to better management and ultimately, prevention."
Dr. Eric Topol from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, demonstrates how 21st-century wireless devices can be used to monitor health information. The iPhone he’s holding is displaying the vital signs of a patient in Texas in real time.
Photo by Chris DeFrancesco
Dr. Cato T. Laurencin and Dr. Henry Kranzler with Dr. Eric Topol (center), who spoke at the premiere of the Lawrence G. Raisz, M.D., Visiting Lectureship in Clinical and Translational Science in the Patterson Auditorium.
Photo by Chris DeFrancesco