From Sound to Sight

Ultrasound and the UW Center for Bioengineering — 1960-1974

Prototypes of the first continuous wave ultrasound Doppler blood flow detectors, developed at the UW, 1962-1964 (Don Baker)

The stage is now set for a revolutionary change in health care.

Robert Rushmer1965

Robert Rusher brought engineers and physicians together, and asked them a hard question: How can we see inside the human body without cutting into it?

During World War Il, sonar and radar technology had been used to detect enemy craft in the sea and in the air. Afterward, engineers raced to find peacetime applications. UW Medicine’s Robert Rushmer and his colleagues essentially applied sonar to the human body. He reached out to staff and faculty across the UW – cardiovascular surgeon Eugene Strandness, engineer Don Baker, engineer Wayne Quinton, and technician Dean Franklin – to found the UW Center for Bioengineering in 1967.

Prototype rotary ultrasound scanheads, UW Center for Bioengineering, 1968-1975 (Courtesy Don Baker)

Black Box Mockup

After years of experimentation, the UW team developed the Doptone, a transmitter on the surface of the skin that could send and receive high frequency sound waves – ultrasound – reflected from blood inside the body. It has allowed doctors to see within the human body – to diagnose problems in the eye, breast and abdomen, assess bone density, monitor the growing fetus, and assist in biopsy and surgery. Today, the ultrasound technology born at the UW improves the health of millions around the world.