UC-Irvine Institute for Precision Health Called an 'Ecosystem for Collaboration'

The University of California, Irvine has launched the Institute for Precision Health (IPH), which brings together UCI’s health sciences, engineering, machine learning, artificial intelligence, clinical genomics and data science capabilities.

UCI said the institute would bring a multifaceted, integrated approach to precision medicine, which collects patient data – history, exams, demographics, molecular and diagnostic tests – and uses the power of computer algorithms, predictive modeling and AI to develop personalized treatment and lifelong health maintenance plans.

“What we’re doing at the Institute for Precision Health is perhaps the most important step we’ll take in this generation to improve health and well-being,” said Steve A.N. Goldstein, M.D., Ph.D., UCI’s vice chancellor for health affairs, in a statement. “The ever-evolving capabilities of the IPH herald a future of personally tailored care that fundamentally alters the healthcare landscape to place the patient at the center and in control.

“In the past, individuals were treated based on approaches thought to be best for groups of patients. Now we begin the IPH epoch of patient-centric care designed to continuously improve the health of the individual within their community, even as new knowledge accrues, whereby rights, incentives, transparency and control remain the purview of the patient,” Goldstein added.

IPH is an ecosystem for collaboration across disciplines that comprises seven areas:

• SMART (statistics, machine learning, artificial intelligence) develops novel statistical methodology to integrate and analyze health records, molecular data, and observational clinical outcomes. The unit is led by Daniel Gillen, professor and chair of statistics, and Zhaoxia Yu, associate professor of statistics.
• A2IR (applied artificial intelligence research) designs practical solutions to real world clinical problems and cost-effective, value-based care. It is led by Peter Chang, assistant professor-in-residence of radiological sciences.
• A3 (advanced analytics and artificial intelligence) brings solutions to inpatient, ambulatory and community settings and supports pilot applications. The area is led by Daniel Chow, assistant professor-in-residence of radiological sciences.
• Precision omics generates, analyzes, and administers genomic, proteomic, and chemical data. It is led by Suzanne Sandmeyer, professor in biological chemistry, and Leslie Thompson, Donald Bren professor and Chancellor’s Professor in psychiatry & human behavior and neurobiology & behavior.
• Collaboratory for health and wellness (powered by Syntropy) houses the analytics platforms and patient-controlled data at the core of the IPH ecosystem. The group is led by Tom Andriola, vice chancellor for information, technology and data, and Kai Zheng, professor of informatics.
• Deployable health equity brings IPH into communities to create solutions to narrow the disparities gap in the health and wellbeing of vulnerable populations. The unit is led by Dan Cooper, professor of pediatrics and associate vice chancellor for clinical & translational research, and Bernadette Boden-Albala, professor and director of the Program in Public Health and founding dean of the planned School of Population & Public Health.
• Education and training, with leadership from each of the above areas, brings courses, seminars, certificates and degrees in statistics, machine learning-artificial intelligence, omics, and bioinformatics to practitioners and students.

A major goal for IPH is revealing new approaches to tackle ailments that lack successful therapies. “For many diseases – especially neurodegenerative ones like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and even Huntington’s, where the causal gene is known – there are simply no treatments available that change their course. We’re excited because we know that with precision health, we have the potential to define diseases better, understand them better and treat them far better,” said Leslie Thompson, IPH co-director, in a statement. “We expect major breakthroughs.”

While the vision idea for IPH has long been in the works, the COVID-19 pandemic was a test of how rapidly critical medical needs could be addressed. In early 2020, with elements of IPH in place, UCI clinicians, biomedical and computer scientists, and public health experts joined forces to create an AI-driven tool to assess the critical care needs of COVID patients. This app-based tool, the COVID Vulnerability Index, demonstrated that a data-driven approach coupled with world-class clinical therapeutics could help yield the best outcomes for individuals, according to UCI.

“We couldn’t have had a ‘proof of concept’ with higher stakes than the pandemic,” said Tom Andriola, IPH co-director, in a statement. “We saw in real time how mobilizing our capabilities to analyze health data and make customized decisions could complement leading-edge clinical treatments to save lives and reduce hospital stays.”

“Additionally, there is an explosion of data in healthcare, and we’re still only using a small fraction in decision-making,” he added. “IPH is including not only data from traditional healthcare settings but also the data coming from a new generation of empowered health consumers who are tracking and managing their own health journey.”

The plan is for IPH to have a brick-and-mortar home on the UCI campus that will serve as a hub for educating data-informed clinicians to practice at the top of their licenses, a site for the infrastructure to facilitate translational research, a place for community outreach and a venue for commercial collaborations. Organizations such as Syntropy and MITRE and community partners such as Children’s Health of Orange County and the VA Long Beach Healthcare System are working with IPH to leverage UCI’s capabilities and commitment as a fair broker for health data.