March 14, 2002
What could you do with Internet 2?
UWired Health Sciences will present the first session of the Health Sciences Advanced Applications Forum on Monday, March 25, from 1 to 3:30 p.m. in room T-435 of the Health Sciences Center. This informational series will reveal the potential of the high-performance Internet to open avenues for technological advancement in research, medical care, and teaching. No registration is required.
The introductory session will feature Mary Kratz, manager of Health Sciences Initiatives for Internet 2, a nationwide organization of universities, private industry, and government partnering for improved Internet technologies. Kratz will give background on the capabilities of the high-performance network and provide information about advanced applications that are currently in development and in use in the health sciences and related fields.
Dr. Brent Stewart, UW professor of radiology and medical education and director of imaging informatics and diagnostic physics, and colleagues will demonstrate distributed conferencing technology currently used for “distributed” Tumor Board, where physicians, researchers and nurse practitioners in different locations meet on a regular basis to present and discuss diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients. The distributed Tumor Board application uses the high bandwidth and low latency Internet for videoconferencing, and transmittal of case records, pathology images, and treatment protocols.
The Department of Radiology uses the high-performance network for work with the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, a collaboration between the UWMC, Children’s Hospital, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
“Our computer networking infrastructure on campus is fairly unique,” said Stewart. “We all tend to use networks as we do a public utility, like flipping a light switch. This Internet 2 Applications Forum will give people the opportunity to see what’s possible.”
Currently, the Health Sciences building connects to the Pacific Northwest GigaPop and then to Internet 2 through a fiber optic line that originates from upper campus, and enters the building in the G-wing. This fiber is then connected to routers, which redirect data to other network segments. These routers transmit data to switches, which send data to individual desktop computers. The current internal bandwidth to any given point in Health Sciences depends upon the existing fiber and hardware, as does the cost of upgrading.
Future sessions on Internet 2 are scheduled for the following dates: May 16, July 18, Sept. 19 and Nov. 21, with presentations during the lunch hour. These sessions will include demonstrations on relevant advanced applications and a videoconference to discuss 2002-2003 grant opportunities with a representative from the National Institutes of Health.
For more information on Health Science Advanced Applications, please contact Kerry Wilke, director of advanced applications for the Office of Educational Partnerships and Learning Technologies, at 543-8818, or via email at kcwilke@u.washington.edu. Additional project information can be found at http://www.washington.edu/uwired/projects/uwiredhs.shtml. For information on UWired Health Sciences, please see the story on page 4.
