The UW attracts some of the top-notch researchers and professors from around the world, and was No. 16 worldwide in the 2008 Academic Ranking of World Universities by the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Although students may not realize it, professors are frequently working behind the scenes on projects other than grading papers. Here is a sampling of what some UW faculty, students and staff have accomplished during the past year.

Best Invention of 2008: The bionic contact lens

Time Magazine named Babak Parviz’s prototype of the “bionic” contact lens one of the “Best Inventions of 2008.” Parviz, a UW assistant professor of electrical engineering, along with co-author’s Ehsan Saeedi, Samuel Kim and Tueng Shen, created a contact lens that can superimpose maps, images and other data over your visual field.

Click and twist:

Foldit, an online game available at www.fold.it, allows average citizens worldwide to aid researchers in protein folding. Developed by Seth Cooper, Adrien Treuille, Zoran Popovic, David Baker and David Salesin — students and faculty from the departments of computer science and engineering and biochemistry — the game allows players to click and twist protein strands that may be later synthesized and applied to biomedical research. Players who help in the development of proteins may be cited in future scientific articles.

Preventing infectious disease one step at a time:

Samuel Miller, a professor of microbiology, genome sciences and medicine, along with other researchers, has synthesized a new compound that may inhibit certain virulence mechanisms of Gram-negative bacteria, the cause of many serious infectious diseases such as cholera, salmonella and typhus. By targeting virulence mechanisms, this prevents destruction of helpful bacteria in the body and is a new strategy in attacking bacteria resistant to antibiotics.

Using traditional Chinese medicine to fight cancer:

Last month, Cancer Letters published results of a study on a new cancer-killing compound, derived from a sweet wormwood plant that is used as traditional Chinese medicine. Tomikazu Sasaki, UW chemistry professor and senior author of the study, along with other researchers, found the artemisinin-based compound is more efficient in killing certain kinds of cancer than currently available drugs, killing up to 12,000 cancer cells for every healthy cell. Chemotherapy, on the other hand, kills one normal cell for up to 10 cancer cells. Human trials are still several years away.

Reach columnist Doris Wu at news@dailyuw.com.