Impact on Georgia

As a dynamic destination for education, a robust research institution, and the largest, most comprehensive health care provider in the state, the Woodruff Health Sciences Center (WHSC) impacts Georgia in a variety of significant ways.

• It helps make Emory University the largest employer in DeKalb County and the largest private employer in the 10-county metro Atlanta area.
• With $2.1 billion in operating expenses, the WHSC's annual economic impact on metro Atlanta is estimated at $4.6 billion.
• Two major facilities opening in 2007 include a 172,000-square-foot medical school building and a 110-bed joint-venture hospital off campus (Emory Johns Creek Hospital). Construction planned for the coming decade calls for new research buildings, a new public health building, a Yerkes Field Station facility, and new clinic and hospital space, including major expansion of facilities on the campus at Emory Crawford Long Hospital.
• Emory is a member of the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA), a partnership of business, research universities, and state government that fosters economic development in the state. Through the GRA, the state invests in research in the WHSC in molecular screening for new drugs, nanotechnology, vaccines, genomics, biomedical and tissue engineering, cancer, imaging, and neuroscience.
• The WHSC attracted $331 million in sponsored research funds last year. Major recent grants include $10 million from the NIH to develop new vaccine strategies to protect transplant recipients and other immunosuppressed patients from infectious disease; $11.5 million from the NIH to Emory and Georgia Tech to use nanotechnology to detect cardiovascular plaque formation; and more than $9 million from the NIH and GRA to Emory, Georgia Tech, and Medical College of Georgia to partner on a nanomedicine development center that will focus on DNA repair.
• The WHSC is a major player in technology transfer, with eight licensed therapeutic products currently in the marketplace in addition to 23 in various stages of development or approval. Emory has launched 37 WHSC Impact on Georgia, continued start-up companies over the past decade, some with help from EmTech Bio, a biotech incubator developed with Georgia Tech.
• The Winship Cancer Institute is a key participant in the Georgia Cancer Coalition, a statewide program working to make the latest advances in cancer care available to all Georgians and investing in cancer research at Emory. Winship leads the Georgia Center for Health Equality, a coalition of hospitals and universities dedicated to training minorities in health-related areas and to counteracting disparities in care.
• The WHSC is the lead partner in the Southeastern Center for Emerging Biologic Threats (SECEBT), a regional consortium of academic health centers, state health departments, and government agencies addressing natural and human-caused biologic threats, such as West Nile virus and pandemic flu.
• The Emory Vaccine Center is one of the largest academic vaccine centers in the world, with scientists working to develop vaccines for AIDS, malaria, hepatitis C, avian flu, and other infectious diseases. Emory's Hope Clinic, which conducts clinical trials for promising vaccines, is part of the premier network in the country for HIV vaccine prevention trials.
• Emory provides medical direction of Grady Health System's Ponce Center, one of the largest, most comprehensive AIDS treatment centers in the country, and was recently designated a primary site in the nation's premier NIH-funded clinical trials network.
• WHSC's physicians provide $70.7 million annually in charity care through Emory Healthcare and $24.7 million in uncompensated care at Grady Memorial Hospital. Through the Emory Children's Center and Children's Healthcare at Hughes Spalding, Emory also is the preeminent provider of specialty care to indigent children in Georgia. Nursing faculty and students support major volunteer efforts for homeless Atlantans, migrant workers, and people with AIDS. Public health faculty and students influence health policy affecting the community's most economically vulnerable, and they partner with the State Division of Public Health to train workers in dealing with infectious diseases and to help prevent cancer, HIV infection, and adolescent pregnancy.