Translation & Commercialization
GWHT translates biomedical innovations into clinical practice by integrating technologies and therapies into real-world healthcare settings through close collaboration with clinical partners. Efforts focus on deploying and refining tools within existing workflows, expanding access to care, and generating insights that inform iterative design and scalability. In parallel, GWHT advances new therapies through clinical trials that evaluate safety, effectiveness, and real-world feasibility, including less invasive approaches aimed at improving outcomes while reducing treatment burden. Together, this work ensures innovations are not only developed, but effectively implemented and positioned for broad clinical adoption.
Kenya:
Translating Innovation into Clinical Practice
Partner: Kenya Medical Research
Institute (KEMRI)
Focus: Cervical cancer screening and early detection
Technologies: Pocket Colposcope and portable imaging systems
Approach: Clinical partnership, workflow integration, and on-site training
GWHT’s work in Kenya demonstrates how technologies move from research into real-world clinical use. Through partnerships with the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and local healthcare providers, GWHT supports the deployment of cervical cancer screening technologies in clinics in and around Kisumu.
This work is focused on expanding access to screening and early detection by integrating portable imaging technologies into existing healthcare systems. Rather than introducing technology in isolation, GWHT collaborates closely with clinicians to ensure that tools are practical, usable, and aligned with clinical workflows.
Deployment efforts include training clinical staff, adapting workflows, and evaluating how technologies perform in real-world settings. These environments often involve resource constraints and dynamic clinical conditions, requiring flexibility and close collaboration with local partners. Insights gained through this process directly inform ongoing technology development, helping ensure that innovations are designed for the settings in which they will be used.
The Translational Fellows Program plays a central role in this work. Fellows work alongside clinicians to support implementation, understand patient care processes, and bridge the gap between engineering and clinical practice. This experience provides critical context that shapes both technology design and deployment strategies.
Technologies deployed in Kenya include the Pocket Colposcope, a portable imaging device designed to improve access to cervical cancer screening. This work builds on GWHT’s broader portfolio of screening technologies, including the Callascope, and reflects a continued focus on expanding access to care.
Through these partnerships, GWHT is developing models for how technologies can be effectively integrated into healthcare systems and scaled to reach broader patient populations. The work in Kenya reflects the center’s broader approach to translation—ensuring that innovations are not only developed, but also implemented in ways that improve patient outcomes.
Clinical Trials:
Translating New Therapies into Clinical Practice
Support: U.S. Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program
Focus: Early-stage therapeutic intervention in breast cancer
Approach: Injectable therapy (ethyl cellulose + ethanol)
Goal: Improve outcomes while reducing treatment building
GWHT is advancing new therapeutic approaches through clinical studies designed to evaluate safety, effectiveness, and feasibility in real-world settings. These efforts represent a critical step in translating innovations from the laboratory into clinical practice.
In breast cancer, GWHT is developing a new treatment paradigm that rethinks when and how therapy is delivered. Rather than waiting until after surgery to begin treatment, this approach explores initiating therapy earlier—at the time of diagnosis—when the tumor can still help guide the immune response.
This work is supported by a Department of Defense–funded clinical program focused on a novel injectable therapy based on ethyl cellulose and ethanol. The approach combines two key effects: directly disrupting tumor cells while also altering the tumor environment to improve the body’s immune response.
The goal is to create a treatment that is both more effective and less invasive—potentially enabling care to be delivered in a single clinical encounter rather than requiring extended treatment over time. This is particularly important for patients who face barriers to repeated hospital visits, expanding access to care while improving outcomes.
Clinical trials play a central role in GWHT’s innovation-to-impact model. Beyond evaluating therapeutic performance, these studies provide insight into how new treatments can be integrated into clinical workflows, how patients experience care, and how therapies can be adapted for broader use across healthcare settings.
By conducting clinical research in partnership with healthcare providers and research organizations, GWHT ensures that new therapies are not only scientifically validated, but also positioned for real-world implementation.