Joshua Harris, co-Founder of Apollo Global Management, and his wife, Marjorie has made a $5 million gift to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to establish the Harris Center for Precision Wellness. As part of the part of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology, the new center will leverage innovative approaches to health monitoring and wellness management by integrating emerging technologies in digital health, data science, and genomics to enable people’s health to be treated in precise, highly individualized ways.
A first-of-its-kind at a major U.S. academic medical institution, the precision wellness research programs will be closely tied to clinical initiatives across the Mount Sinai Health System. The Harris Center’s immediate efforts will focus on digital health, molecular profiling, and data science. The Center is evaluating the usability of wearable devices to see how effective they can measure activity, stress, sleep, cognitive functioning, mood, and environmental exposures and using sequencing technology to bring DNA, Microbiome, and immune system profiles into predictive models of wellness.
Additionally, the new Center will apply state-of-the-science analytics and machine learning to the wealth of individualized metrics to produce actionable, data-driven insights into key aspects of wellness, and to help lead the way to a nextgen healthcare that is scalable and far superior to anything now available.
Joel Dudley, PhD, a highly regarded genomics and bioinformatics expert at the Icahn Institute, and by Gregory Stock, PhD, an accomplished life-science entrepreneur and technology-innovation expert will serve as the Harris Center directors.
“We are deeply grateful to Mr. Harris for his generosity, vision, and passion,” said Dr. Dudley. “His gift will help realize the promise we see in new digital health technologies such as wearable sensors and mobile applications. By drawing upon the core competencies in genomics, multiscale biology, bioinformatics, data science, population health, and clinical trial design at the Icahn Institute, the Harris Center initiatives will further enhance Mount Sinai’s reputation as one of the world’s premier innovators in personalized healthcare. It is exciting to have an opportunity to integrate and apply these emerging technologies in a meaningful and scientific way in the pursuit of optimal wellness, vitality, and preventive care.”
