b'Brynmor ReesKimberly Muller, Esq. Richard Zane, M.D. Raymond Goodrich, Ph.D.Venture Partners at CU BoulderCU Innovations CU School of Medicine and UCHealthColorado State Universitysays, What we learned out of thisand DarwinUCHealthspre-pandemicinvestmentsZane believes that the lessons learned and Biosciences is a good exampleis that inno- created new ways to care for patients whenchanges made during the pandemic will have vations like vaccines and diagnostics can beand where they needed it. Alternatives toa lasting effect on how UCHealth delivers accelerated to market when the urgency isin-person visits included electronic commu- care. This has been what I call one of those clear. Coming out of this year, we have greaternication, texting, and telehealth.never go back events, he says. As in, I doubt public understanding of how pandemics work,We use technology deliberately and judi- we will go backwards from using remote care better public health surveillance systems, andciously to make care seamless for the patientand virtual visits when the patient and the more capital resources. This wont be the lastand the provider, whether it is in person orprovider both feel its appropriate to the pandemic; the question is, will we be morenot in person, synchronous or asynchronous,specific situation.prepared for the next one? says Zane. They wanted every patienteven CSU Focuses on Disease Readiness UCHealth Builds an Infrastructurethose being monitored remotely for serious of Preparedness chronic conditions like diabetes, heart failure,COVID-19 is the virus we have to solve today, asthma, or emphysemato have the sameand it will likely be with us for a long time, but As COVID-19 threatened to overwhelm health- relationship with their care team no matterit wont be the last, according to Raymond care capacity all over the nation and thewhere they were. Goodrich, Ph.D., Executive Director of the globe, an enormous challenge for hospitalAs part of this effort, the organization hadInfectious Disease Research Center and and healthcare systems emergedhow tobegun a directed effort to develop andProfessor in the Department of Microbiology suddenly move almost all non-emergentimplement a robust, seamless, and intuitiveImmunology, and Pathology at Colorado patients to remote care. electronic health record (EHR) that wouldState University (Fort Collins).That was no small task, according to Kimberlyfacilitate and enhance provider workflowsGoodrich currently heads the effort to Muller,Esq.,ExecutiveDirectoratCUand the patient experience. develop a process for rapid vaccine pro-Innovations (University of Colorado AnschutzAll of the infrastructure we had put in placeduction called SolaVAX. Using this process, Medical Campus, Aurora). UCHealth is aallowed us to scale up very rapidly, says Zane.pathogenic virions are treated with riboflavin 12-hospital system spread across sevenWe had to add workstations, but we didntwhich, when exposed to UV light, acts as states. And when March hit, we had to gohave to implement a single new process,an endogenous photosensitizer. Unlike from full capacity to a total shutdown. Indevice, or technology that we didnt alreadystandard chemical inactivation processes, 48 hours, we had to start delivering care tohave in place.UV-activated riboflavin selectively targets patients who couldnt come in person. nucleic acids while leaving proteins and Richard Zane, M.D., is a Professor and theIt was a massive transformation in real time.other macromolecules intact, with native Chair of the Department of EmergencyWe went from a few hundred telehealth visitsconformations.Thus,SolaVAXrenders Medicine at CU School of Medicine and theper day before pandemic restrictions began,viruses incapable of replication, but able Chief Innovation Officer for UCHealth. Heto thousands per day at the peak, says Zane.to present a native set of antigens to the says that UCHealths forward-thinking cultureBut we were able to care for our patients bybodys immune system. An advantage of helped the system successfully navigate theoffering them an alternative to coming in thatthis approach, says Goodrich, is that the abrupt changes.was, in many cases, just as good. resulting vaccines display a diverse array 6 BIOSCIENCECOLORADO 2021-2022'