In Brief

Ramping up health care

Emory has ramped up an earlier plan to expand its patient care and research facilities.

This summer, the Board of Trustees approved a $73 million proposal that includes replacing Emory University Hospital with a new hospital. Two years ago, Emory announced plans to construct a new Emory Clinic complex, along with a replacement for Emory Hospital, to be located and built in phases across Clifton Road from the hospital’s current site. The new proposal calls for expanding facilities at Emory Crawford Long Hospital in Midtown, which was not part of the 2006 plan.

The center also provides a rich training ground for medical students, residents, and fellows. During the past two years, the VAMC increased its support for graduate medical education by 14% and will provide an additional 2% next year.

In all, more than 400 Emory investigators are engaged in approximately 150 research projects at the VAMC, which ranks consistently near the top 10 of VA centers in research dollars received. Among the researchers who thrive there is David Guidot, director of the Emory Alcohol and Lung Biology Center (see the story about his research on page 8). The VAMC is also home to top research centers in geriatrics, HIV/AIDS, and rehabilitation medicine. Their work is complex but their goal is simple: to serve the nation’s heroes today and improve health care for past, present, and future veterans.

Several years ago, the bridge that once joined our campuses was removed. This summer, VAMC director James Clark and I were among those who dedicated a new bridge over Peachtree Creek that once again links us. Designed to blend with its natural environs, the suspension bridge makes our campuses more pedestrian friendly. But for those of us in the School of Medicine, the bridge takes on deeper significance as physicians, scientists, residents, students, and others cross back and forth between our co-joined worlds and with every crossing make a difference in patient care and research, now and in the future.

Sincerely,

Pediatric powerhouse

Expansion of the Midtown campus includes the addition of 125 new hospital beds, a 137,000-square-foot Emory Clinic building, and 75,000 square feet of new research space.

New Clifton Road facilities now include a 250-bed hospital, replacing 100 beds currently in Emory Hospital for a net gain of 150 beds; a new 395,000-square-foot Emory Clinic to be built next to the current clinic; a larger emergency department in the new hospital; and a new 100,000-square-foot research building across from the Emory-Children’s Center.

Expansion of the Midtown campus includes the addition of 125 new hospital beds, a 137,000-square-foot Emory Clinic building, and 75,000 square feet of new research space.

The new proposal is founded on several years of planning guided by community input to create a more integrated approach to health care that can respond nimbly to patient demand.

From mouse to monkey

Scientists at Yerkes National Primate Research Center and the Department of Human Genetics have developed the first transgenic nonhuman primate model of Huntington’s disease (HD).

Until now, researchers used transgenic mice to study HD, but the models did not completely parallel the brain changes and behavioral features that characterize people with the inherited disorder. Patients experience uncontrolled movements, loss of mental processing capabilities, and emotional disturbances.

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta has designated $430 million from its endowment to create a pediatric research powerhouse involving Emory, Georgia Tech, and other research and academic institutions in Georgia.

Over time, the investment will change the pediatric research landscape, especially in areas such as heart disease, oncology, and neuroscience. Additionally, the partnership will attract top medical talent and grants as well as prime the pump for start-up companies to help develop new treatments and vaccines.

The initiative opens the door to further collaboration between Emory and Children’s. Since 2004, pediatric researchers, clinicians, and teachers have lived under one roof in the building that houses the Emory-Children’s Center (ECC) on the Egleston campus. In 2006, Emory and Children’s agreed to operate ECC jointly as the largest pediatric multispecialty group practice in Georgia.

“The transgenic monkeys provide us with unparalleled opportunities for assessments that mirror the ones used with humans,” says lead researcher Anthony Chan. “With such information, much of which

Thomas J. Lawley Dean

we are obtaining by using Yerkes’ imaging capabilities, we are developing a more comprehensive view of the disease.”

The researchers believe their progress bodes well for developing transgenic monkey models of other neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. In the case of HD, such models may bring hope to the five to 10 people in every 100,000 who are affected. Patients succumb to the disease within 10 to 15 years of symptom onset.