Janssen announces collaboration with US universities to expand data science research in healthcare

This program will be the first of its kind in the San Francisco Bay Area, which serves as a hub of both tech and biotech industries and is home to two of the world’s top universities. The agreement was facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation.

The parties will collaborate to create and establish a data science health innovation fellowship program, run by UCSF and UC Berkeley, working with product and platform teams within Janssen. The program will recruit serial cohorts of up to five outstanding data scientists from industry or academia to conduct innovative research in areas of unmet patient need. Fellows will have access to computer science, engineering, and statistics expertise and technology innovation at UC Berkeley and clinical expertise and data at UCSF, which they will use with other health and biological datasets to safely and respectfully conduct research projects over two years with mentorship from Janssen, UCSF and UC Berkeley.

Fellows will carry out their research at the Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS) at UC Berkeley and the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute (BCHSI) at UCSF. Projects could include artificial intelligence-driven apps to inform patients about next steps in their treatment, or to give them early warning signs of disease, or new methods to manage and recruit participants for clinical trials. Such projects could ultimately lead to new companies that bridge the gap between growing healthcare datasets and meaningful insights.

“We’re at an inflection point where the health, technology and consumer industries are converging in new and potentially life-saving ways,” said Mathai Mammen, M.D., Ph.D., Global Head, Janssen Research & Development*. “This fellowship program aims to bring together data scientists, large biomedical datasets and expertise from both industry and academia to find innovative new ways of improving healthcare and bringing meaningful solutions to people in need.”

Contemporaneously with the agreement to create a data science health innovation fellowship program, Johnson & Johnson Innovation Center LLC facilitated a broader arrangement that aims to foster a wide spectrum of sponsored research projects among UC Berkeley, UCSF, Janssen and Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices and Consumer companies.

“These agreements with UCSF and UC Berkeley exemplify our commitment to building a thriving network of collaborations that strengthen and leverage data science capabilities and advance compelling scientific research,” said Mammen. “We see major potential to unlock new disease insights, enhance the effective, efficient discovery of transformative medicines and ultimately deliver better health outcomes for patients around the world.”

Source: Company Press Release