UCLA pupil Kanon Mori works to amended wellness attraction portion bridging cultures and disciplines
Fourth-year UCLA pupil Kanon Mori, an organizer of the Japan-America Innovators of Medicine, speaks during a presumption past November to medtech entrepreneurs, investors, physicians and pharmaceutical executives astatine Awaji Island successful Japan.
Lucy Berbeo | January 12, 2023
Many students embark connected their assemblage travel with the extremity of uncovering a existent consciousness of purpose. Kanon Mori recovered hers during her archetypal twelvemonth astatine UCLA — and spent her clip arsenic an undergraduate bringing that intent to fruition.
Born successful Los Angeles to parents from Japan, Mori grew up bilingual and passionate astir bridging Japanese and U.S. culture. Excelling successful STEM and funny successful medicine, she chose to large successful computational and systems biology, an interdisciplinary programme successful the UCLA College that trains students to lick biologic problems by combining the sciences, mathematics and computing.
In classes connected nationalist wellness and wellness policy, Mori learned astir inequities successful the U.S. wellness attraction strategy and decided to assistance alteration things connected a planetary scale. “I realized the imaginable technological innovations tin person to shingle up the full industry,” says Mori, who is acceptable to postgraduate this June. “And UCLA is the gateway into the U.S. from Japan’s perspective. With its world-class aesculapian probe and technological innovations, I knew I had to instrumentality vantage of being a pupil present to initiate a project.”
Mori teamed up with students from Stanford University and aesculapian schools successful Japan, including those astatine the University of Tokyo, Osaka University and Kyoto University. Together, with enactment from world institutions, companies and individuals, they spearheaded Japan-America Innovators of Medicine, oregon JAIM — a student-driven, entrepreneurial effort to tackle the planetary wellness attraction situation of dementia and to foster U.S.-Japan collaboration successful advancing medicine.
Dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, is connected the emergence worldwide and particularly successful Japan, wherever much than a 4th of the colonisation is 65 oregon older. JAIM leaders, including Mori and her counterparts astatine Stanford and Osaka, recruited 9 students from Stanford and UCLA to enactment successful grooming bootcamps, past flew them to Japan to sojourn dementia attraction settings, observe the request firsthand and make solutions. Returning to the U.S., the students spent the adjacent 4 months moving nether JAIM supervision to make prototype aesculapian devices aimed astatine helping dementia patients and caregivers worldwide. By addressing the urgent request successful Japan, JAIM aims to make solutions earlier the occupation becomes terrible successful nations similar the U.S.
The rigorous program’s success, Mori says, owes overmuch to the thrust and dedication of everyone involved. “We each poured our passions into this project,” she says. “Each 1 of america brought our ain respective strengths to the table, and we each had an unwavering assurance that what we were doing was invaluable to the world.”
Since completing their prototypes successful November, respective participants person presented and garnered involvement astatine nationalist and planetary conferences. In February, Mori says, JAIM volition be the UCLA MedTech Partnering Conference hosted by the UCLA Technology Development Group successful bid to question mentorship and resources to motorboat their prototypes into production.
Mori describes starring JAIM arsenic “challenging to accidental the least” — she and her squad spent a twelvemonth processing the program, which she says felt similar moving a startup successful summation to being a full-time pupil — but recovered it incredibly fulfilling.
“My beingness ngo is to span Japan and the U.S. by connecting resources and radical successful the tract of medicine,” she says. “And entrepreneurship is fascinating to maine — done the galore failures and the endless uphill battle, I consciousness astir alive.”
The aforesaid tone drives Mori’s winning efforts arsenic portion of UCLA’s triathlon team. “You tin find america gasping for aerial portion inching our mode up the steep hills of Malibu with our roadworthy bikes connected an aboriginal Saturday morning, oregon charging into the crashing waves of Santa Monica to signifier unfastened h2o swimming earlier heading backmost to field for class,” she says. “It’s a radical of fit, quirky and driven radical who marque the challenging athletics of triathlon into an enjoyable one.”
Mori’s eventual goal, she says, is to make a merchandise oregon work that volition marque wellness attraction much accessible, affordable and businesslike done technological innovation successful business. She envisions herself moving arsenic a merchandise manager, planetary concern improvement manager oregon perchance adjacent the creator of her ain startup. For now, arsenic she finishes elder year, she’s enjoying the galore opportunities UCLA has to offer.
“There truly is nary spot similar it,” she says. “It’s truthful breathtaking to beryllium here, conscionable imagining what tin commencement up successful specified an environment. I’m grateful for each professor, adept and chap pupil who has changed my beingness successful a profound way.”
English (US)