Governor of California Edmund G Brown Jr in his State of State address on January 22, 2014, mentioned how California, a pioneer in the new field of precision medicine, uses genomics, medical devices, computer science, and ideas from other fields to treat individual patients.
In an action to move forward in the field of precision medicine, the University of California at San Francisco and Quest Diagnostics have launched a collaboration to advance precision medicine to improve patient care, treatment, and outcomes. The initial clinical areas of focus include autism, oncology, neurology, and women’s health.
This alliance is the first major agreement that UCSF’s Office of Innovation, Technology, and Alliances has signed with a clinical laboratory testing company and the alliance will work to translate laboratory research into new therapies. The broad agreement will enable the two organization to perform multiple projects.
The organizations will focus on diagnostics in order to take the most informative data from molecular, clinical, population, along with other research data to create predictive, preventive, and precise medical solutions for patients. Quest Diagnostics will independently develop and validate any lab-developed tests for clinical use that emerge from the collaboration’s research.
Researchers will use laboratory-based diagnostics, imaging procedures, and population analysis based on Quest’s National Health Trends database, the largest private clinical database in the U.S. which is based on more than 1.5 billion patient encounters.
The alliance will combine UCSF’s early-stage research with Quest Diagnostics expertise in data pooling and analysis to initiate and advance clinical studies. Strong areas of mutual interest include digital health initiatives to enhance the value of diagnostic information and inform population health strategies. It will then be possible to integrate diagnostics incorporating imaging, laboratory, and clinical datasets into valuable diagnostic solutions to yield health insights for targeted groups of patients.
For more information, go to www.ucsf.edu and to www.QuestDiagnostics.com