Since being appointed as Maricopa County Attorney 10 months ago, Allister Adel has brought a whirlwind of changes to the office to increase transparency, emphasize treatment over punishment, and reach out to groups like the business community, all with the economy in mind.  

“If we have a safe community, we have a good economy,” said Adel, the first woman to hold the position since the first county attorney, , took office in 1912 to tame the Old West. 

Adel spoke Tuesday during the kickoff of the Arizona �鶹��ýӳ�� of Commerce and Industry’s new Leadership Series. The virtual event was presented by the law firm Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie. 

She talked about the office’s many “firsts” including new prosecution integrity protocols, a new data dashboard for public viewing, expansion of treatment diversion programs, reduction of administrative red tape, and more.  

Handling high profile cases with ease  

Adel started her as a prosecutor in the County Attorney’s office where she spent seven years before taking on administrative positions in state government. Her public service prepared her well for her new role in the spotlight.

Among the cases garnering national attention under her leadership was a break in a heart wrenching cold case last week. Almost two decades after 17-year-old Alissa Turney disappeared, Phoenix police arrested her stepfather, Michael Turney, for her murder. 

Earlier this year, Adel also fired famous prosecutor Juan Martinez, who spent his career putting some of the most notorious murderers behind bars. But decades of allegations of sexual harassment by employees in the office came to an end under her leadership.  

Behind the scenes, Adel has instituted a flurry of new programs including:

New felony diversion program provides alternative to prosecution

With an emphasis on “treatment first,” a new Felony Diversion Program has expanded options for people charged with crimes like drug offenses to receive treatment in place of prosecution.

With a focus on treatment versus incarceration, offenders can continue to work, care for their families and go to school. That takes some of the burden off taxpayers and the justice system, Adel said.

“When I took office October 3, we were really looking at treating the offender and not the offense, and by that I mean people who are committing crimes — whether it is organized retail theft, whether its drug possession — because they have underlying issues of mental health or addiction,” Adel said. 

In the midst of the pandemic, more than 1,300 individuals facing criminal prosecution have been referred to the program. This new program combines what was formerly known as the Drug Diversion Program and Felony Pre-Trial Intervention Program to offer a more “robust” treatment option that addresses underlying behaviors and attitudes that affect criminal behavior, Adel said.

Eliminated diversion case fees 

Prior to the pandemic, Adel directed staff to eliminate diversion case fees that ranged from $630 to $1,200. The fees acted as a deterrent to diversion treatment programs  because many defendants could not afford them, she said. 

Home detention now option for misdemeanor DUI 

In its quest to reduce over-incarceration, the office announced on Tuesday that, for the first time in the history of the county, when someone is convicted of misdemeanor DUI, home detention will now be a sentencing option for a portion of the offender’s mandatory jail sentence. Home detention reduces and helps avoid collateral consequences associated with incarceration, such as disruption in employment, schooling, and family stability, Adel said.

New data dashboard 

Last month, the office launched a new data dashboard on its website to provide more transparency and data tracking. The new dashboard at contains information about how cases are handled.

New prosecution policies and plea procedures 

With 90 percent of criminal charges ending in plea agreements, county prosecutors now have new policies to guide how to handle these cases, and for the first time in the history of the office, the new plea policies are for the public.

New prosecution integrity program 

Adel announced the creation of a centralized process within the office to handle claims of actual innocence, potential inappropriate police conduct including alleged excessive use of force, and other claims of prosecutorial unfairness in handling cases. 

The new Prosecution Integrity Program works with defense organizations and prosecutors to review and address items of integrity and conduct.

Advisory Councils 

Adel also is reaching out to the community and businesses for input with two advisory councils, the and the .  

“Public safety is critical to ensuring a stable and growing economy for our community. Understanding the concerns of business leaders provides a perspective that is important to my decision-making process. Not only are businesses often victims of crime, they employ members of the community who may have interactions with our criminal justice system,” she said. 

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Arizona’s bioscience and health communities are rushing alongside their counterparts across the globe to find ways to hold off and eradicate the new coronavirus. 

From a new test that can detect the virus within 15 minutes to high tech robots that can sterilize hospital rooms, their work is contributing to a world stepping up to stop it from spreading.����

As of Wednesday, the had killed more than 2,006 people in China and three in other countries, according to the World Health Organization. Globally, more than 75,000 people have been confirmed to be infected. The vast majority are in China. So far, only seven cases have been reported in the U.S., including one in Arizona. 

Pharmaceutical firms and researchers in the U.S., China and other countries are pushing to find ways to prevent more devastation from the outbreak. 

In Arizona, researchers and health facilities are jumping in: 

TGen working with FDA to approve test to diagnose virus����

Flagstaff researchers at TGen believe they can develop a quick, accurate, genomics-based test that could produce results in as little as 15 minutes, and is easily used in a doctor’s office or hospital emergency room.

Development of such tests can take months; even years. TGen scientists are waiting on an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) so they can move their discoveries more quickly from the lab to doctors and their patients.

They are developing a test that not only can detect if a patient has a coronavirus, but also tell which type of coronavirus, which can be as mild as a common cold or the more deadly types like SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and the new virus, which was officially named COVID-19 this month. 

Currently, the only other available is being developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It received an emergency use authorization from the FDA Feb. 4 to allow more health labs to test samples. 

One test is not enough, said David Engelthaler, co-director and associate professor of TGen North in Flagstaff, who took to the airwaves last week to talk about the virus. TGen North is the infectious-disease division for the Phoenix-based non-profit Translational Genomics Research Institute that uses genomic sequencing to identify and develop therapies for diseases like cancer. 

“If the disease starts to spread and we do see large outbreaks in the U.S. like they’re seeing in China, it will be important to have a lot more than just that single test so we want to make sure that we’re ready to be able to respond and make a great as impact as possible,” Engelthaler said.����

TGen’s test involves collecting a sample of DNA from a sick patient, such as mucous from the nose, and using sequencing technology to determine if it is COVID-19.

“We’re going to be able to develop a similar type of rapid test but we can look throughout the entirety of the genetic material to not only say absolutely it’s this exact strain and whether it’s changing,” Engelthaler told KTAR News. “It will give information for both doctors and public health officials who are tracking this outbreak.”

ASU researchers developing vaccine 

In a similar race, three Arizona State University researchers are working to find a vaccine for COVID-19. 

In her lab at the Biodesign Institute at ASU, Professor Brenda Hogue, a virologist in the School of Life Sciences, specializes in the study of various coronaviruses and understanding virus-host interactions at the cellular level.

Hogue and two other researchers, molecular biologist Qiang Chen and virologist Bert Jacobs, are working to create different vaccines to combat COVID-19. Their different strategies involve changing an existing vaccine and creating a new one.

In a recent Q&A interview with ASU, Hogue said that it can take years for a vaccine to be available. 

“It takes a long time and one has to start from initial experiments. Small animal models, if available, are generally used before ultimately testing in primates and then humans. In the case of the vaccine development for the new coronavirus, it will facilitate work that has already been done for SARS and MERS.” 

Hogue said they are initiating work to understand several of the proteins that are common to coronaviruses that they have already been working on. 

“We are interested in what is different about the proteins in the new virus, compared to the other coronaviruses that we work with. We want to understand how the differences impact the functions of the proteins during infection. We’re initiating this work as we speak and will certainly share results with the scientific community,” she said. 

Honor Health uses germ-zapping robots to clean patient rooms 

Hospitals across Arizona like HonorHealth also are well prepared for any outbreaks. 

HonorHealth started purchasing germ-zapping robots a few years ago with the help of generous community donors. Today, they have 32 of the robots that will come in handy if the virus spreads. They can kill 99.9 percent of germs left in a room.���� 

Using high-intensity ultraviolet light, the small robots disinfect a patient room in just minutes. Delivered in millisecond pulses, the light is hundreds of times more intense than sunlight. The robot successfully kills germs, including bacteria, viruses, bacterial spores, and antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

“You can imagine how hard it is to wipe down every nook and crevice in a room. Think of the telephone, cords, bed rails and other things. The advantage of the robot is that its germ-zapping light penetrates the entire area,” Stephanie Jackson, MD, HonorHealth senior vice president and chief clinical value officer said in a prepared statement.

The robots were first used in HonorHealth’s unit for patients with blood cancers at Scottsdale Shea Medical Center. This specialized unit cares for individuals who are among the sickest and most vulnerable of HonorHealth’s patients, those with leukemia, lymphoma and other blood cancers. Because of their treatment, these patients have significantly compromised immune systems, leaving them vulnerable to infections.

Many of the deaths associated with COVID-19 have been patients who were elderly or  already sick or unhealthy. 

Meanwhile, the best protection is simple, health care professionals said. Wash hands thoroughly with soap, use hand sanitizers with alcohol and avoid touching the face with unclean hands.

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Diagnosis, surgery, radiation therapy, repeat. This is the typical process for a patient with a brain tumor.

Neurosurgeons must be extremely cautious when removing a tumor mass from a patient’s brain due to the brain’s vitally important role in all mental and physical functions, said Matthew Likens, president and CEO of GT Medical Technologies, a Tempe-based startup with a mission to improve the lives of brain tumor patients.

“If they’re too aggressive, then there’s a high likelihood they can affect very critical areas of the brain that affect memory and movement and speech,” Likens said. “As a result, they know they’re leaving residual tumor cells behind.”

Those residual cells mean the tumor can come back. If the cells are cancerous, the .

Patients often must wait anywhere between two to four weeks for the surgical wound to heal. To prevent the tumor’s recurrence — stop it from growing back — patients undergo an intensive treatment called .

“That is a miserable experience for the patients,” Likens said. “Many of them lose their hair during the daily external beam radiation. They’re shuttled back and forth to a radiation center. Each day they’re reminded that ‘by the way, you have a brain tumor, and we need to take care of it.’”

Enter the founders of GT Medical Technologies: Dr. Peter Nakaji, a neurosurgeon; Dr. Emad Youssef, a radiation oncologist; Dr. David Brachman, a radiation oncologist; Dr. Heyoung McBride, a radiation oncologist; and Theresa Thomas, a certified clinical research coordinator.

“They were desperate for new treatment options for patients with brain tumors — especially those patients with recurrent brain tumors,” Likens said. “In spite of really great surgeons and really careful therapy afterward, tumors recur. And if you’re fortunate enough to survive that recurrence, and you have another procedure, then they recur again.”

The GT Medical Technologies team developed a new way to treat patients: GammaTile. The small “tiles” of collagen are infused with radiation.

After a successful brain tumor resection (removal), the surgeon places these tiles inside the tumor cavity in the patient’s brain, delivering two-and-a-half times stronger radiation than the external beam.

“On average, this takes about five minutes, so it doesn’t extend surgery time significantly,” Likens said. “After the tiling is done, the surgical wound is closed, and within a day or two… the patient is eligible to go home. And that’s it.”

That’s it. No six-week therapy session and quarantine, no three-week waiting period before radiation, no time for the tumors to return.

“The founders commissioned an IRB-approved study at the in downtown Phoenix, and in that study they treated 108 patients across just about every type of brain tumor,” Likens said. “And the safety results reported from that study were very impressive. This mode of radiation is as-safe or safer than today’s current standard of care.”

All of the GT Medical Technologies founders were at BNI at one point, and three — Nakaji, Youssef and Thomas — still are. The company formed at LaunchPoint, a startup incubator in downtown Mesa. As such, it is “an .”

“We’re keeping it here,” Likens said. “Our chief technology officer, Dr. David Brachman, left his role as director of radiation oncology at Barrow just about a year ago, last March, and he joined us full-time to get his invention out into the marketplace as effectively as we can.”

But the company’s plans are not purely local. Right now, GammaTile is in a limited market release, meaning it has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration but does not yet have the funding to be everywhere at once.

GT Medical Technologies recently received its Series A round of funding, which allows for limited commercialization of the product, and the company is several months in.

The first patient treated in a hospital setting received GammaTile at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, and two more were treated at the center on March 27.

Dr. Clark Chen, chairman of neurosurgery, is “seeking to establish a culture of innovation at the University of Minnesota Medical Center in neurosurgery” and took an immediate interest in GammaTile, Likens said.

“Our purpose is simply to improve the lives of patients with brain tumors, and we think GammaTile will accomplish that,” he said.

The founders of GT Medical Technologies hope to replace the current standard of care for patients with brain tumors, which they believe to be insufficient, he said.

The company is still in its beginning stages, but it has big plans. With FDA clearance, the company can move forward commercializing its product in the U.S., and the founders hope to expand the product’s scope soon.

“This is certainly a global opportunity,” Likens said.

In the future, GammaTile may be used in other parts of the body; Likens said the company has already claimed patents for “extra-cranial” tumors outside the brain.

“We just think there are so many advantages to applying the radiation in this way that every patient should have the benefit from it.”

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