20161109, Wednesday, November 9, 2016, Boston, MA, USA, Brigham and Women's Hospital held their second annual Discover Brigham day of research programming with a preview luncheon for invited guests in the third floor conference area of the new Brigham Building for Transformative Medicine to launch Discover Brigham on Wednesday November 9, 2016. background – "This year, the BWH community will have a lot to celebrate and talk about at Discover Brigham. The Brigham Research Institute is inviting faculty, staff, patients and the public to its annual celebration of science and medicine on Nov. 10, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Many of this year’s events –  including the award ceremony and reception – will take place in BWH’s brand new building at 60 Fenwood Road. In the spirit of the new building’s mission, the theme for Discover Brigham will be “collaborate, accelerate, translate,” and attendees will be invited to learn all about BWH’s efforts to bring new discoveries from the bench to the bedside faster than ever before. The day-long celebration will feature a special nursing research forum, lunch for those who register for the day, 100 research posters throughout the hospital and moderated panel discussions with world-renowned experts on topics that have been making news headlines. Panels and moderators, including members of the media, leaders from industry and BWH experts will discussion the Zika virus, the opioid epidemic, the power of precision medicine and more at this year’s event. This year, industry partners will be a part of the majority of the day’s panels. “I look forward to Discover Brigham every year, but this year’s event is especially inspiring, as we will be able to host many of our sessions in the new building and celebrate that building’s themes of bringing together our research and clinical communities to tackle some of the most pressing challenges in medicine today,” said Paul Anderson, MD, PhD, chief academic officer and

General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt discusses the health care industry with Betsy Nabel at a luncheon kicking off Discover Brigham.

The Brigham Research Institute brought together industry leaders, BWH and Partners HealthCare leadership and faculty to kick off this year’s Discover Brigham at a luncheon held on Nov. 9.

The theme for Discover Brigham, “Collaborate, Accelerate, Translate,” and the luncheon’s setting in the new Building for Transformative Medicine (BTM) served as the backdrop for the event, which featured remarks from BWHC President Betsy Nabel, MD; Vertex Pharmaceuticals Chairman, President and CEO Jeff Leiden, MD, PhD; and General Electric Co. Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt.

Opening the discussion, Nabel shared her vision for the BTM.

“It is our hope that this building will foster collaboration and creativity, and that the discoveries and innovations developed here will bring hope to our patients,” she said. “We are honored to have the best and brightest people train with us, and we take our role in training the next generation of physician-scientists seriously.”

Leiden, who completed his medical and research training at BWH, described the hospital as his “intellectual home,” tracing the route to many of his seminal discoveries – including the development of the first-ever monoclonal antibodies to treat immune diseases – back to pivotal moments in his time at the Brigham.

“BWH is where I learned to be both a physician and a scientist, and how to bring those two career paths together,” said Leiden, who chairs the BWH Scientific Advisory Board. “This building will be an important part of that training for the next generation.”

During the discussion, Immelt spoke highly of past collaborations with the late Ferenc Jolesz, MD, who had been a driving force behind the Advanced Multimodality Image-Guided Operating (AMIGO) suite at BWH. He also shared his perspective on industry-academic interactions and why GE recently chose Boston for its new headquarters. GE plans to employ 800 people at the new site, with the vast majority focused on research areas, including data analysis and the life sciences.

“We wanted to be in a sea of ideas,” said Immelt. “We’re an engineering company that respects technology and aspires to be at the interface of small companies, large research organizations, universities and startups.”