The COVID-19 emergency has motivated the research community to reach inspiring new heights – many investigators have pivoted their programs to collectively take virtually every approach to study COVID-19 and SARS CoV-2, from mechanisms of infection to clinical treatment, therapy development, and population studies! I hope you can join January 25-27 for my panel at PMWC COVID (no fee) on how COVID-19 has impacted biomedical research and our healthcare system.

COVID-19 has been the single most devastating public health crisis in over a century, hugely disrupting both biomedical research and our healthcare system.

• The biomedical research community has literally been shut down. All non-COVID-related investigations have stopped, and training programs put on hold. For some, the damage may be lasting, with PhD graduations and post-doc programs on hold, widespread hiring freezes, and non-productive expenditure or expiration of funding.
• Weaknesses in the US healthcare and research system have come into sharp focus, revealing a fragmented network spanning multiple federal departments and agencies, without effective communication or lines of authority.

“On the plus side, COVID-19 has spurred remarkable advances…”

• researchers around the globe are collaborating to decipher the virus and its disease
• data are being freely shared among researchers, organizations, and across borders
• research publication has been expedited, allowing the community to build quickly on new discoveries
• grants programs have been expedited
• diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics are being developed at record speed

“Nothing will replace what precision medicine seeks.”
Importantly, the rapid progress has been enabled by decades of basic science discoveries and technologies. It is now more important than ever to integrate new methodologies, experimental data and real-world information from the healthcare frontline to begin to understand why some individuals are more affected by this virus than others. Building that continuum of research into a network of knowledge, of course, is the mission of precision medicine!
We need to be able…

• to bring different data types onto a common analytic platform to identify correlations and patterns
• to build predictive risk models
• to make informed treatment decisions
• to identify social/behavioral drivers

All this with the goal to improve patient outcome, to control COVID-19, and to better prepare for future pandemics.
To achieve this, PMWC has created a pivotal three-day conference that touches upon all of these elements.
The speaker lineup includes leaders from across academia, pharma, healthcare provider, regulatory, and the commercial solution delivery space:

• Adrian Hill, Oxford University
• Aaron Tobian, Johns Hopkins
• Aashish Manglik, UCSF
• Amy Compton-Phillip, Providence St. Joseph Health
• Andrew Hemmert, BioFire Diagnostics
• Andrew von Eschenbach, Samaritan Health Initiatives
• Anne Wyllie, Yale School of Public Health
• Anthony Fauci, US National Inst. of Allergy & Infectious Disease (NIAID)
• Anu Osinusi, Gilead Sciences
• Ashley Mason, UCSF
• Bruce Patterson, incellDx
• Carlos Bustamante, UCSF
• Catherine Blish, Stanford University School of Medicine
• Christopher Mason, Weill Cornell Medicine
• Connie Szczepanek, Cancer Research Consortium of West Michigan (CRCWM)
• Danielle Swaney, UCSF
• Diane Havlir, San Francisco General Hospital
• Fareed Melhem, Medidata Solutions
• Hanneke Schuitemaker, Amsterdam University Medical Ctr.
• Harpreet Rai, Oura Ring
• Helmy Eltoukhy, Guardant Health
• Ida Grundberg, Olink Proteomics
• Ira Mellman, Genentech
• James Heath, Inst. for Systems Biology
• James Lu, Helix
• Jane Perlmutter, Gemini Group
• Janet Woodcock, FDA
• Janice Chen, Mammoth Biosciences
• Jeffrey Balser, Vanderbilt University
• Jennifer Radin, Scripps Research Translational Inst.
• Jessica Mega, Verily Life Sciences
• Jia Xin Annie Yu, Cancer Research Inst.
• Joel Dudley, Tempus
• John Moore, Fitbit
• Jonathan Rothberg, 4Catalyzer
• Joseph DeRisi, UCSF, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub
• Keith Yamamoto, UCSF
• Kevin Hrusovsky, Powering Precision Health
• Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, UCSF
• Kristen Azar, Sutter Health
• Kristina McGuire, Regeneron
• Lance Baldo, Adaptive Biotech
• Lars Steinmetz, SOPHiA Genetics
• Lee Hood, Providence Health
• Marcia Eisenberg, LabCorp
• Marty Tenenbaum, Cancer Commons
• Maximilian Konig, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
• Michael Snyder, Stanford Ctr. of Genomics & Personalized Medicine
• Monica Herrera, Bio-Rad
• Nathan Pennell, Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Inst.
• Omer Bayraktar, Wellcome Sanger Institute
• Patrice Hugo, Q2 Solutions
• Peter Marks, FDA
• Ralph Snyderman, Duke University
• Richard Schilsky, ASCO
• Ruth Clements, Quest Diagnostics
• Ruth March, AstraZeneca
• Sarah Warren, NanoString Tech
• Sheila Walcoff, Goldbug Strategies
• Steven Quay, Atossa
• Susana Rojas, Calle 24 Latino Cultural District
• Tal Zaks, Moderna
• Yvonne Maldonado, Stanford University School of Medicine

Learn More

Join us for this most relevant and timely scientific conference where we can exchange relevant information to not only tackle, but actually beat the virus.

Sincerely,

Keith Yamamoto,
Co-Program Chair
PMWC 2021 COVID-19, Jan. 25-27