An Audacious Proposal
for Transforming & Democratizing Healthcare

At ISB, we remain committed to inventing the future of human health, with the ultimate objective of democratizing healthcare in developed and developing countries worldwide. In last year’s annual report, we proposed a digital-age, Framingham-like longitudinal study over 25 years for 100,000 well individuals. Phase 1 of the 100K Wellness Project launched in March 2014 with a group of “100 Pioneers” whose early results have been spectacular. Phases 2-4 will scale the study to 1,000 participants in 2015, 10,000 in 2016 and eventually 100,000.

This year, we want to make another audacious proposal that will leverage the striking response to the 100K study that we’ve received from many leaders at research institutions, medical centers and innovative health systems in the U.S. and abroad who have already initiated strategic partnership discussions with us. Internationally, we envision a franchise-like model with rigorous scientific and security standards and an agreement to aggregate and share data. This will enable seamless coordination across the countries that become early adopters.

The 100K study harnesses ISB’s systems approach to disease and expertise in the integrated analyses of biological data. We first gather the genome sequences of participants and then collect blood, saliva, stool and urine samples every three months in order to measure microbiome diversity in the gut; clinical chemistries that are focused on nutrition; 1,600 blood metabolites; epigenetic (methylation) status of white blood cell DNA; blood organ-specific fingerprints from the brain, heart and liver; selected hormones; ongoing clinical histories, psychological tests, and data from “quantified-self” devices including heart rate, activity, sleep quality, blood pressure, weight, etc. These measurements form a dynamical personalized data cloud for each participant that enables us to study the molecular basis of health and disease. As the study grows, it will help distinguish between those who remain well or improve in health and those who transition into disease. This insight will allow us to construct multiparameter metrics for wellness—a term now defined by fuzzy psychological criteria—and study the initiation and progression of disease.

When integrated with health coaching and medical oversight, these metrics create “actionable outcomes” that allow participants to increase their wellness or to facilitate early transition from disease back to a wellness trajectory. So far, after having analyzed just a few types of data, we’ve found that 100 percent of the 100 Pioneers have multiple actionable possibilities—thus confirming our hypothesis that virtually all individuals will have the potential to improve their wellness and/or avoid disease.

Why ISB

The 100K Wellness Project emerged over the past decade from ISB’s application of systems approaches to the study of disease. What we now term “systems medicine” has reached a tipping point and is changing the practice of medicine through ISB’s many pioneering technologies and systems strategies: identifying disease genes through family genome sequencing, delineating panels of blood proteins that can distinguish benign from cancerous lung nodules, stratifying disease into its distinct subtypes, developing computational approaches to identify new drug target candidates, etc. Also, our faculty have expertise and interest in: genomic, proteomic, metabolomic and physiological assays; single-cell assays that serve as windows into human biology and disease; the microbiome’s influence on health; and big-data analytics and predictive modeling.

The convergence of systems medicine, big data and patient-activated social networks has led to a medicine that is predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory—P4 medicine. P4 is proactive, focused on the individual and wellness, creates virtual dynamical clouds of billions of data points for each patient that can be used to optimize wellness and minimize disease, contends that clinical trials should be done in the context of individuals rather than large populations, and employs patient-activated social networks for crowd sourcing, learning and advocacy. Contemporary medicine is focused almost completely on disease. The 100K study embodies P4 principles and serves as a pilot project for bringing P4 medicine to the U.S. healthcare system and, perhaps, to those of other nations.

The benefits of the 100K initiative are truly staggering. The collected data will reveal actionable possibilities for optimizing wellness and minimizing disease. Creating multiparameter metrics for wellness will quantitatively define such fundamental human aspects such as stress, resilience, energy and physiological versus chronological age. Identifying and treating diseases at the earliest transitions will save billions of healthcare dollars. This project will push essential advancements in technology from mobile applications that can measure, for example, a droplet of blood to the development of a global IT for healthcare.

With the introduction of P4 medicine into the healthcare system, industry will have to rewrite business and clinical plans to remain competitive. A lucrative industry will emerge as bold innovators become the Googles and Microsofts of wellness. And as P4 spreads through developed and underdeveloped nations, the cost savings will enable the P4 practices worldwide that will democratize healthcare.

The Potential for U.S. Leadership

The U.S. can be at the forefront of this transformation by positioning itself as a global innovator through the advancement of science, technology, IT for healthcare (big data) and medicine. This would fundamentally transform the nature of healthcare through the introduction of the concept of wellness as the foundation for medicine of the 21st century, thus fostering innovation and spurring investment in the U.S. economy.

We are building a coalition of like-minded colleagues to successfully engage Congress and the Administration to create a nationally supported 100K Wellness Project. A bipartisan federal initiative would ensure that the U.S. maintain global leadership in P4 medicine. Success will require broad scientific collaborations and partnerships with visionary policy makers who value as a national priority the improved health of our citizens, the concomitant healthcare savings, and the explosion of private industry opportunities.

Dr. Lee Hood, President and Co-Founder of ISB

Institute for Systems Biology has a dizzying breadth of research projects. But when we talk about what we do, it’s how we do it that matters most. The systems approach that we pioneered and exemplify continues to distinguish our ability to tackle the most complex biological and environmental challenges today. Because of how we apply our hallmark collaborative, cross-disciplinary and integrative approach, our collective success is greater than the sum of the parts. We’ve highlighted some of the headlines from 2013 that celebrate specific milestones, but together attest to ISB’s continued leadership in systems biology. Click on any of the images below to learn more.

Faculty

Principal and Senior Research Scientists & Engineers

5-Year Overview
Research Operating Expenses vs. Total Revenue

Statement of Activities
Dollars in Thousands

Balance Sheet
Dollars in Thousands

Recognition Listing

Alphabetical Order By Publication Title