Institute for Precision Health – UCI Health Affairs

About Us

In February 2022, UCI launched the Institute for Precision Health (IPH), an endeavor that has as much to do with data as it does health. IPH aims to change the healthcare landscape, focusing on the individual patient to empirically identify the most effective health and wellness strategies at a personal level. IPH will assess if the cost of treatments are validated by their utility, and open doors for breakthroughs in diseases where no current treatments change the course of the disease, such as Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s. The institute’s success will be measured by improvements in individual and community health.

Operating now as an institute without walls, IPH aims to have a brick-and-mortar home on the UCI campus, which will serve as a hub to educate data-informed clinicians so they can practice at the top of their licenses, train data scientists to collaborate with clinical practitioners to develop the analytic tools that will drive the field, house personnel to facilitate translational research, and serve as a location for both community outreach and industry collaborations.

FAQs

Perspectives on Precision Health

The IPH Ecosystem

IPH comprises eight programs focused on three goals: redesigning health practice to improve care and decrease costs, deploying solutions to achieve health equity, and empowering effective health policy.

Statistics, Machine Learning, and AI Research Technologies (SMART)

The statistics, machine learning and artificial intelligence program develops novel statistical methodology to integrate and analyze health records, molecular data and observational clinical outcomes. It’s led by Daniel Gillen, Chancellor’s Professor and chair of statistics, and Zhaoxia Yu, professor of statistics.

Applied Artificial Intelligence Research (A2IR)

The applied AI research program translates machine learning methods into deployable solutions addressing clinical problems and matching the cost of care to its value. It’s led by Peter Chang, assistant professor-in-residence of radiological sciences.

Applied Advanced analytics & Artificial Intelligence (A3)

The applied analytics and AI program brings novel solutions to improve health and well-being to ambulatory and inpatient settings. It’s led by Daniel Chow, assistant professor-in-residence of radiological sciences.

Precision Omics

The precision omics program generates and translates genomic, proteomic and metabolomic research results into clinical applications. It’s led by Suzanne Sandmeyer, professor of biological chemistry and director of the Genomics Research and Technology Hub, and Leslie Thompson, Donald Bren Professor and Chancellor’s Professor of psychiatry & human behavior as well as neurobiology and behavior.

End to End (E2E)

The end-to-end data infrastructure makes available real-world data in order to positively impact clinical outcomes, quality, research and operations. It’s led by Alpesh N. Amin, the Thomas and Mary Cesario Endowed Chair in Medicine, and David Merrill, director of enterprise data and analytics at UCI Health.

UCI Collaboratory for Health and Wellness

The Collaboratory for Health and Wellness is an ecosystem that fosters collaboration across disciplines and organizations through the integration of health-related data sources. It’s led by Kai Zheng, professor of informatics.

Deployable Equity

The deployable equity program engages community stakeholders and health equity groups to create solutions that narrow the disparities gap in the health and wellbeing of underserved and at-risk populations. It’s led by Dan Cooper, professor of pediatrics and director of the UCI Institute for Clinical and Translational Science, and Bernadette Boden-Albala, professor and director of the Program in Public Health and founding dean of the planned School of Population and Public Health.

Education and Training

For the education and training program, leadership from each of the areas plans to bring courses, seminars and other educational opportunities in statistics, machine learning-artificial intelligence, omics and bioinformatics to practitioners and students.

IPH Leadership

Dan Cooper, MD

Interim Director, Institute for Precision Health

Leslie Thompson

Basic Science Director, Institute for Precision Health

Alpesh Amin

Medical Director, Institute for Precision Health

Meet the Team

IPH News & Events

Steve Goldstein

Vice Chancellor, Health Affairs

“We are thrilled to launch this Institute and believe its work is an important step toward a healthcare revolution that will empower patients, confront health inequities, decrease cost and impartially judge the effectiveness of medications and devices.”

Alpesh N. Amin

Co-Director and Medical Director, Institute for Precision Health

“We tend to innovate when we need to, when the will is there. Are we motivated to create a world where health data is used the way it should be used – to the benefit of each person and community?”

Peter Chang

Co-Director, UCI Center for Artificial Intelligence in Diagnostic Medicine

“With recent advances in artificial intelligence enabling unprecedented ability to discover complex patterns in health data, we are one step closer to realizing the potential of precision medicine.”

Bernadette Boden-Albala

Founding Dean, Program in Public Health

“The Institute for Precision Health is a fantastic vehicle for bringing together all sorts of collaborators. But I’m most interested in bringing data to communities and together coming up with questions that we can ask of the data that’ll help us think about solutions that move us toward health equity.”

Leslie Thompson

Co-Director, Institute for Precision Health

“With the resources of IPH, …not only can we define diseases and subgroups of patients better, but we can also do predictions on the course of disease using artificial intelligence. We can help clinical trials happen much more rapidly and with the right cohort of patients.”

Suzanne Sandmeyer

Director, Genomics Research and Technology Hub

“Health equity is complicated, but we know community outreach and education are crucial. With IPH, we’ll be pulling in more people from diverse backgrounds who will then help us to achieve the more equitable delivery of care, because we’ll better understand the causes of inequity.”