HonorHealth launches $7 million translational science lab

HonorHealth Research Institute is opening a new $7 million Center for Translational Science laboratory in the heart of the Phoenix Bioscience Core (PBC).

This laboratory, which includes lab bays, a tissue culture room and faculty office space, is the first significant physical footprint of the Center for Translational Science, whose goal is to take scientific breakthroughs at the HonorHealth Research Institute and translate them into new devices, drugs and preventative measures that will improve the lives of patients.

Sunil Sharma, M.D., Director of the Center for Translational Science, joined “us “Arizona Horizon” to discuss.

One of their goals is to bring “bench to bedside research,” Dr. Sharma called it, to the lab. He said the goal is to bring the “strength in the clinical system that HonorHealth has” and “use that information to develop new diagnostics, treatments, etc. in the laboratory and sort of cycle them back to the clinic.”

The work is designed to bring a variety of knowledge contributing to specific diseases, according to Dr. Sharma. HonorHealth does work with ASU Health, and they are specifically working to create the research portfolio for ASU’s new medical school.

“It’s actually the whole excitement around that whole downtown bioscience, I call it the bioscience assets, that Arizona is developing. We are also part of the School of Medical Engineering that is now the building of ASU’s new medical school, so we are also affiliated really closely with ASU’s new health,” Dr. Sharma said.

HonorHealth is partners with ASU’s new medical school through the clinical participations, therefore the clinical rotations will be held through HonorHealth. Dr. Sharma said the partnership is bridging research and clinical care.

This production is long-term due to several other projects currently in the works. Dr. Sharma said the current focus is “let’s show some real progress in the next few years, both in the areas of innovation, changing clinical care and medical education.”