Background
The development of an innovative health sciences research and education initiative is critical for the continued economic development of the life sciences community across the state and the region, the strength of the statewide infrastructure and the health of all Delawareans. Four major institutions - the University of Delaware (UD), Christiana Care Health System CCHS), Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children/Nemours (Nemours), and Thomas Jefferson University-Jefferson Medical College (TJU-JMC) - are aligning their resources and efforts to create a unique, broad-based Delaware Health Sciences Alliance, focused on establishing innovative collaborations among experts in medical practice, health economics and policy, population sciences, public health, and biomedical sciences and engineering. All four institutions are located within Greater Philadelphia, one of the nation’s leading life science regions. Over 400 locally-based life sciences companies, with 55,900 core, highly-skilled life-science employees and 310,000 support workers, make life sciences the #1 employer in the region.
Building on a Common Vision
The Health Sciences Alliance builds on a common vision for the need to provide the finest health care education, cutting-edge, interdisciplinary clinical and translational research and an understanding of the success of new models and methods of healthcare delivery through comprehensive analysis of basic biomedical research, translational and clinical studies, epidemiology and outcomes research. The Alliance partner institutions have successfully collaborated in over 100 areas, with individual projects ranging from medical student and resident education, cancer and cardiovascular research, nursing and allied health practitioner training, to research infrastructure development and industrial collaboration. Examples include: Nemours is the Department of Pediatrics for JMC; CCHS teaches over 100 JMC medical students in clinical rotations each year; through the Delaware Institute for Medical Education and Research (DIMER) and the UD Medical Scholars program, Delaware residents have preferred admission to JMC; students in the new TJU School of Pharmacy will spend three years at UD and followed by three years at TJU to receive the education required for the PharmD degree; and, through the NIH-IDeA INBRE and COBRE grants, over $100 million in research and education infrastructure funds have been secured since 2000 by these institutions for Delaware.
A New Level of Cooperation
To strengthen the Alliance, two new interdisciplinary and inter-institutional centers will be established, building on a shared infrastructure and new level of cooperation to stimulate increased and comprehensive growth - the Delaware Center for Cancer Biology and the Delaware Cardiovascular Research Center.
Taken together, these initiatives will enable Delaware to develop enhanced professional health education focused on the state’s needs and enhanced research in areas important to the region, especially in cancer and cardiovascular disease. The short-term results will be more jobs and increased business opportunities in Delaware. In the longer term, these efforts will lead to improved health for citizens in the Delaware Valley.