Mary Fuchs

Director, Ideas x Innovation Network

Science geeks have a new superhero in Mary Fuchs. In the two years since Chester County’s Ideas x Innovation Network (i2n) was formed, Fuchs has helped to create state-of-the-art facilities where the best and the brightest  in the region can flourish and develop their inventions.

One such place is the Innovation Center at Eagleview in Exton, a 25,000-square-foot building that’s now home to nine companies. Another is the 10,000-square-foot Innovation Center at Evolve IP in Wayne. Fuchs recruits, nurtures and promotes all of the entrepreneurs working at both locations. 

And what most of them don’t know is that Fuchs has also beaten breast cancer. Diagnosed two years ago, just as i2n was forming, Fuchs had HER2-positive cells in both breasts, so she opted for a bilateral mastectomy, chemotherapy and reconstructive surgery. “My grandmother, mother and sister had breast cancer, and none of us tested positive for the BRCA genetic mutations,” says Fuchs, a mother of three who lives in Exton. “That shows me that there are genetic linkages that haven’t yet been found.”

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Sounds like a job for one of i2n’s scientific minds.

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