The Biswas Family Foundation, in partnership with the Milken Institute Science Philanthropy Accelerator for Research and Collaboration (SPARC), is pleased to announce the inaugural recipients of the Transformative Computational Biology Grant Program. Five multidisciplinary research teams will receive nearly $14 million total in grant funding for projects aiming to drive translational impact and the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) models in clinical settings for diagnosis and treatment. The awarded institutes and lead investigators are detailed below.

• AI for Genomic Medicine: Circuitry, Treatment, Personalization (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): Manolis Kellis, PhD, Professor of Computer Science
• A Chatbot Assistant for Genetic Diagnosis and Interpretation of Common and Rare Cardiovascular Diseases (Stanford University): Anshul Kundaje, PhD, Associate Professor of Genetics and Computer Science
• Biswas Center for Transformative Computational Cancer Biology (Gladstone Institutes): Katherine Pollard, PhD, Director of Data Science & Biotechnology
• The MAIDA Initiative: Democratizing Global Medical Imaging Data Sharing for Safer and Fairer AI (Harvard Medical School): Pranav Rajpurkar, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics
• CURE-Bench: Universal Benchmark for All-Disease Drug Repurposing (Harvard Medical School): Marinka Zitnik, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics

Computational tools have the potential to revolutionize how to study, prevent, and treat human disease. Additional support to enhance AI and computational biology research, inclusive of a gift to the Arc Institute, marks a total of $15 million in giving for the Biswas Family Foundation for this interdisciplinary field, and the beginning of more support.

“Today’s rapid advances in AI and computation are leading to a new era of scientific discovery. It is now possible to bring together data from millions of patients, identify new mechanisms of disease, and turn those insights into translational impact,” said Sanjit Biswas, co-founder of the Biswas Family Foundation and CEO of Samsara. “We hope this initial investment will support groundbreaking research that will lead to a significant improvement in human health.”

The announcement of the grant program awardees comes alongside the release of the Milken Institute SPARC’s Computational Biology: A Giving Smarter Guide. This guide examines the landscape of the computational biology field and offers a review of how philanthropic investments are uniquely positioned to support gaps in the field to advance the deployment of AI tools to patients. This guide examines the landscape of the computational biology field and offers a review of how philanthropic investments are uniquely positioned to support gaps in the field to advance the Transformative deployment of AI tools to patients.

“The Milken Institute’s analysis has made clear that philanthropic funding can address a variety of challenges to accelerate the implementation of computational models in clinical settings to improve patient care,” said Cara Altimus, PhD, managing director, Milken Institute SPARC. “The Biswas Family Foundation’s launch of this grant program will help fill this gap. Additional investments across the biomedical and health ecosystems are needed to ensure the promise of AI tools to help people live longer, healthier lives is fully realized.”

Milken Institute SPARC works with philanthropists to develop comprehensive strategies and launch and lead high-impact science and health-oriented research initiatives. To learn more about the Transformative Computational Biology Grant Program and to read the Giving Smarter Guide, visit: https://bit.ly/3Vae8Kq.

About the Biswas Family Foundation

The Biswas Family Foundation is a grant-making private foundation, helping fund teams of leading scientists at several research institutions. We hope to accelerate both the understanding of complex diseases and translational research in practice, and help improve the lives of millions of people around the world.

About the Milken Institute

The Milken Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank focused on accelerating measurable progress on the path to a meaningful life. With a focus on financial, physical, mental, and environmental health, we bring together the best ideas and innovative resourcing to develop blueprints for tackling some of our most critical global issues through the lens of what’s pressing now and what’s coming next. For more information, visit www.milkeninstitute.org.

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