2023 Inventor of the Year Reception

The School of Medicine is proud to announce the selection of Dr. Ruikang Wang as the 2023 Inventor of the Year! The Inventor of the Year Award recognizes a UW researcher whose work has the potential to radically improve healthcare through the translation of research from the bench, with industry partnerships, to products or processes with major impacts on health. Selection is based on the researchers’ contributions to the bioscience sector and to the UW faculty community, and for contributions to the UW Co-Motion mission to extend the impact of UW research through new partnerships that encourage investment in innovation.

In addition to honoring Dr. Wang, the event will feature an Innovator Showcase highlighting the next generation of UW inventors.

Dr. Wang is currently a professor of Bioengineering and Ophthalmology and holds George and Martina Kren Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology Research at the University of Washington. His laboratory is responsible for the invention of optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA, or optical microangiography), an OCT imaging technique capable of 3D imaging of blood flow within microcirculatory tissue beds in vivo. He has published extensively on this topic, including demonstrations of the use of OCTA to image retinal blood flow, cerebral cortical blood flow, cochlear blood flow, skin blood flow and oral cavity, without a need for contrasting dyes. The technique has now been translated for use in clinical ophthalmology, making a real impact on saving patient vision. His laboratory has also made important contributions to the current development of cellphone-based smart healthcare, where they invented a cost-to-nothing technique to realize hyperspectral imaging on unmodified smartphones. This innovation will enable widespread use by general public because of the increasingly popular use of smartphones in our daily life.

This event is hosted in partnership with CoMotion.