Winter/Spring 2008

OFFICIALS OF Georgia Tech, Saint Joseph’s Health System and Saint Joseph’s Translational Research Institute (SJTRI) – a division of Saint Joseph’s Health System – have signed agreements designed to more rapidly move new treatments, therapies and products into clinical use with patients.

One area of potential collaboration between Georgia Tech and Saint Joseph’s is in robotic surgery.

The agreements call for the $18.5 million relocation and expansion of the SJTRI research facilities to Technology Enterprise Park (TEP), a new bio-business park located adjacent to the Georgia Tech campus, and collaboration between physicians and researchers at Saint Joseph’s Hospital and Georgia Tech faculty and students.

“The greatest roadblock to getting new therapies or devices from the research lab to patients has been the silo approach to research,” says Nicolas Chronos, M.D., president of the Saint Joseph’s Translational Research Institute. “This relationship between Saint Joseph’s and Georgia Tech brings all the forces together – clinicians, patient care, biotechnology, bioengineering, bioscience and entrepreneurial business – for cross collaboration and innovation that will move the process ahead much faster for the benefit of patient care.”

Phase one involves the expanded SJTRI facility in Technology Enterprise Park (TEP), a 32,000-square-foot facility that will include catheterization labs, expanded vascular physiology lab, surgical suites and additional research capabilities. Georgia Tech researchers will have access to the research facility for clinical trial activities.

“Collaboration between the engineer/scientist and clinician is key to new discoveries, so we welcome this opportunity to collaborate with Saint Joseph’s to help accelerate the development and application of advances being made across a broad range of medical specialties,” said Mark Allen, Georgia Tech’s senior vice provost for research and innovation. “Working with the physicians and researchers of Saint Joseph’s will give our faculty and students new opportunities to combine what they learn in our classrooms and research laboratories with clinical experience.”

Phase one of the new facility is expected to be completed by early 2009.

The collaborative agreements include reciprocal faculty and research appointments for Saint Joseph’s clinicians and Georgia Tech academic faculty. Initial areas of scientific collaboration include:

• Orthopedics

• Bioengineering

• Cardiovascular surgeryand cardiology

• Genomics

• Systems biology and informatics

• Advanced diagnostic and therapeutic technologies

• Robotics and surgical education

• Facilities design and process improvement.