Exploring Medical Frontiers
Health care, science, engineering, design and more converge at USC to take on today’s most pressing issues affecting the human body. At the forefront of medical developments worldwide, the university’s cooperative approach models what it means to work together for the common good.
Novel Approaches
Developing biodevices and life-saving medicines is just the beginning. Traditionally, barriers exist between experts in different disciplines fighting the same disease or health problem; at USC, we clear the way for new avenues of collaboration.
This is a critical time in health care where only a select few institutions will have the ability to take advantage of the great advances in science to provide markedly improved clinical care if not cure intractable diseases.
Steven Shapiro, USC Senior Vice President for Health Affairs
Breadth in Medical Research
Stem Cell Research & Regenerative Medicine
The Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC hosts world-class scientists and shared facilities in imaging, therapeutic screening, flow cytometry and genome modification. Investigators are exploring the normal mechanisms that build, maintain and repair body systems to develop knowledge-based approaches for regenerative medicine. Scientists are researching kidney, liver, neural, blood, cardiovascular, skeletal and skin disease models.
Alzheimer’s Disease Research
The Alzheimer Disease Research Center at USC, supported by the National Institutes of Health, conducts research on memory problems and aging. The center’s studies include observational studies that follow participants over time while examining changes that may occur with age, and therapy studies such as exercise training, medications and vaccines.
Comprehensive Cancer Research
The USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center is an innovative leader in the cancer field, setting a global standard for new research that accelerates programs to prevent, control and cure cancer.
Neuroimaging & Informatics
The USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute applies innovative imaging and information technologies to the study of the brain. Our interdisciplinary team investigates brain structure, function and disease, using techniques such as mathematics, genomic analysis and ultra-high-field MRI scanning.
Keck School of Medicine of USC Institutes, Centers & Programs
The Keck School of Medicine of USC’s research institutes, centers and programs consolidate the expertise of physicians, scientists, statisticians, epidemiologists, engineers and other research professionals from across the university.
Interdisciplinary Creativity for Medical Discovery
Bringing together medicine, engineering, advanced computing, chemistry, cinema, design, 13 USC labs and over 30 groups worldwide, USC’s Pancreatic Beta Cell Consortium is building a groundbreaking atomic resolution model of the pancreatic beta cell. The mission? Improve the lives of the more than 100 million people living with diabetes.
This collaborative team is advancing our understanding of the complex inner workings of the human body.
Hear from key members of the interdisciplinary team developing new methods for understanding and treating diabetes.
Left to right: Carl Kesselman (engineering), Alex McDowell (cinema), Kate White (chemistry) and Helen Berman (quantitative and computational biology) have joined forces to revolutionize biological discovery and accelerate advancements in diabetes treatments and therapies.
“Our work aims to create a profoundly new approach to exploring and understanding the fundamental mechanisms of the cell and the role that this can play in human health.
Achieving this requires creativity at multiple levels, not only in creating the end product of a whole cell model but also in creating entirely new approaches to science that leverage synergies between biology, computer science, interactive storytelling and human perception.”
“We want the USC community at large to fully understand what we mean by interdisciplinary collaboration. True collaboration is like a jazz quintet, perfectly balanced, individual performers who rely on each other to create a form that has never before existed and could not exist without the one harnessing the power of the other.
It is not top down, it does not work to instruction, it exists as pure form and it can do anything, built on the reverberations from the Rosetta Stone development of shared language, in any discipline.”
“I’ve had a lot of freedom and support at USC to explore developing new methods for cellular mapping. The university supported me leading an international consortium and driving science forward quite early in my career, which was very encouraging.
Having access to different departments and schools gave me a lot of new perspectives for how we need to think about complex biological systems and how we interact with and interpret the data.”
“Creativity requires having a very big vision and an ability to think out of the box. This means not being restrained by conventional thinking and to have the confidence to pursue projects that others think are too risky.
In our whole cell modeling project, we have chosen to cross disciplinary boundaries to invent totally new ways of representing the cell and its constituents. We have invented a new visual language that borrows from architecture, chemistry, and is implemented using an algorithmic approach.”
USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience
Accelerating discoveries from bench to bedside, the Michelson Center brings together diverse disciplines — think engineering, cinema, information sciences and more — to reimagine biomedical discovery and application.
USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics
As one of the nation’s premier policy centers, the Schaeffer Center measurably improves value in health through evidence-based policy solutions, research excellence, and private- and public-sector engagement.
USC Edward R. Roybal Institute on Aging
Advancing research, policy and practice, the USC Edward R. Roybal Institute on Aging improves the lives of older adults and their families from diverse communities locally, regionally and globally.
Department of Population and Public Health Sciences
Through high-impact, interdisciplinary research and training, USC’s population and public health experts are improving lives locally and globally through the Keck School of Medicine of USC and in collaboration with global partners.
The Call to Innovate
Some of today’s most demanding illnesses call for courses of action that are not just new, but revolutionary. USC has combined seven schools under its health sciences umbrella to consider the full scope of contributing factors when treating illness: medical, dental, pharmaceutical, occupational therapy, physical therapy, social work and gerontology.
An Ecosystem of New Methods
Trojan scientists, engineers, designers, researchers, health care experts and diverse collaborators are uniting across vast areas of expertise and resources to uncover new medical pathways, bravely breaking traditional barriers in health care research.
USC physical therapists treat soldiers at military bases across the country
Three Trojans find more autonomy in the military, where they are the first line of defense when injuries occur
How to clear a toxic protein that can lead to Alzheimer’s and related diseases
USC Stem Cell scientists discover a new way to rid cells of toxic tau protein in a study involving “mini-brains” known as organoids.
How AI and genomics are personalizing cancer treatment
USC-led study uses AI to analyze genetic mutations and improve cancer treatment strategies
How USC researchers are using computer code to write the future of medicine
Remo Rohs discusses the work of USC Dornsife’s Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology.
Witnessing violence harms brains of older teens, but ‘transcendent thinking’ may be an antidote
Teens who think about social issues and violence in reflective ways show greater resilience to the effects of violence exposure on their brain development, USC research finds.
Researcher awarded $3M to study early brain development of babies born to mothers with diabetes
The study will investigate neural biological mechanisms underlying the link between diabetes in pregnancy and child’s risk of obesity.