5 months ago
WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) -- Children's Hospital is poised to break boundaries with an enormously generous gift. $150 million from The Government of the United Arab
Emirates.
"It is overwhelming just how cool it is. This fabulous donations will help children all over the world," says Dr. Peter Holbrook, Chief medical officer at Children's Hospital. He says the money will be targeted to research that will improve pediatric surgeries, not just for the children here... but for children everywhere.
"Just as illness knows no boundaries, discoveries know no boundaries either. It's a fundamental tenet of the institute that we will publish and share our findings widely," says Dr. Holbrook.
One area in which they hope to create new discoveries will be Immunology therapy.
Says Doctor Raymond Sze, "If I take my liver and put it in your body, your body will dissolve it, attack it. Why can't we do that with cancer? We can. It's already being done with mouse."
They hope to develop ways to make the possibility of surgery more precise and to make surgeries themselves less invasive.
One breakthrough area could be in pain management. With children, pain is difficult to measure and is heart wrenching to watch. Worse, it can interfere with the child's recovery.
"Pain can be adverse to healing. If a child is crying and the heart beat is going it, it makes if difficult trying to heal," says Holbrook.
Doctors here believe they can develop a way to measure pain can in five to ten years.
The gift was arranged by philanthropist Joe Robert, a longtime supporter of Children's.
The main campus will be named after Sheikh Zayed, the founder of the United Arab Emirates.
Written by Peggy Fox9NEWS NOW & wusa9.com
Comments 
