Imagine a world where health care providers can tell, during the course of therapy, whether the chemotherapy is effective.
On Thursday, September 13th, the Ebling Library hosted a remarkable event in its Historical Reading Room, announcing a collaboration between the School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH), the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and GE HealthCare. SMPH’s Dean, Robert Golden welcomed UW-Madison’s Chancellor David Ward and Provost Paul Deluca, local administrators, Carl Gulbrandsen (WARF), Tom Still (Wisconsin Technology Council) and Thomas Grist (Chair of Radiology at UW SMPH), GE’s President and CEO, Thom Gentile and their V.P and Chief Technology Officer, Mike Harsh to this historic event.
In front of a packed house each guest spoke about the importance of the relationship which celebrates decades of research collaboration and technology inventions with an GE’s anticipated $32.9 million investment in a state of the art imaging research facility. The center will be located in the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research (WIMR) which is connected to the UW Health Science Learning Center and UW Hospital and Clinics. A new patent and technology agreement between GE Healthcare and WARF governs the intellectual property and licensing practices of the research agreement. According to WARF, the collaborations between GE and UW researchers have resulted in nearly 200 inventions disclosures, more than 80 filed U.S. patents, and numerous licensing agreement and technology improvement.
In addition to the collaborations between physician, engineers and scientists in connection with an outstanding academic medical center, Dr. Grist spoke of the development of new products for GE and other Wisconsin-based start-up companies that arose from research in the Departments of Radiology and Medical Physics, like Novellos, Neuwave and Tomotherapy (now, Accuray). Tom Gentile suggested that that collaboration would yield not only the significant economic benefits to the state of Wisconsin but would enable GE and UW to create protocols that will fundamentally change clinical care both here and around the world. Ebling Library was excited to be part of this historic announcement, cognizant of the fact that our patrons in UW’s health care institutions like SMPH, WIMR, and the Departments of Radiology & Medical Physics look to Ebling and its services, collections and databases for state of the art information and resources. Let us know if we can help in any way as this collaboration evolves.
Photo of David Ward, Tom Gentile, Robert Golden, Thomas Grist and Tom Still taken by Michael Lemberger, UW Health Marketing & Public Affairs