Page 92 - Innovation Delaware 2018

BY PAM GEORGE
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HEALTH CARE
Burgeoning Population Drives Expansion, Innovation in Sector
For a small state, Delaware has big bragging rights when it comes to health care innovation.
It is the home of Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, whose Nemours Center for Cancer & Blood Disorders offers nationally
renowned pediatric oncology and hematology care. Then, there’s Christiana Care Health System and its cutting-edge research, especially at the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute. The U.S.- Israel Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation awarded a $900,000 grant to the Graham Center’s Gene Editing Institute in 2017. The institute, led by Eric Kmiec, Ph.D., received the money due to its enormous potential to accelerate the development of
personalized, gene-based cancer therapies.
In April, the institute announced the creation of a gene-
editing tool that could allow researchers to take fragments of human DNA and precisely and quickly engineer changes to
the genetic code. “The advance could have immediate value as a diagnostic tool, replicating the exact genetic mutations found in the tumors of individual cancer patients,” while also reducing the time required for diagnostics, according to the announcement.
The Gene Editing Institute also is working to create the next generation of cancer researchers, thanks to a $1 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. That grant supports the development of a gene-editing curriculum in collaboration with Delaware Technical Community College. “The NSF award clearly places us at the forefront of gene editing education,” said Kmiec in announcing the grant. “I believe we are among the first ever to transform a research tool used for years in our laboratory into a teaching tool that can be used in the undergraduate curriculum.”
Throughout the state, there is a spirit of cooperation and creative collaboration. That spirit is embodied by eBrightHealth, an accountable care organization (ACO)
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COMPANY TO WATCH
Bayhealth’s decision to build a new hospital on a 165-acre site off Route 1 in Milford solved a problem. The original hospital, built in 1938, was landlocked
in downtown Milford. Meanwhile, the area’s population is exploding.
Milford straddles both Kent and Sussex counties,
90 DelawareBusinessTimes.com
which are undergoing growth spurts. Between 2010 and 2016, Kent County’s population grew 7.7 percent while Sussex County’s population rose 11.7 percent. Attracted by low taxes and new construction, many newcomers are retirees. In Sussex County, 25.8 percent of the population is over 65.
TERRY MURPHY
Bayhealth
It’s a demographic with high health care demands.
But the decision to build a new structure was about more than an accessible location. “We’re totally redesigning how we do health care,” says TERRY MURPHY, president and CEO of Bayhealth, which was created in 1997 by the merger of Milford Memorial and Kent General hospitals.
The $314 million project also gives Bayhealth a clean slate, Murphy says.
To improve the patient’s experience and be more