Message from the Dean and Institute Director

Welcome to the Institute for Population and Precision Health (IPPH). With the recent revolution in genomics, exposomics, and precision medicine, it has become increasingly evident that every patient is unique concerning his or her disease processes. Thus, each patient requires unique, personalized treatment and other clinical services. Across the nation, the clinician community has begun to embrace the idea of precision medicine in managing their patients through individualized treatment plans. The scientific community and policy makers caution against adopting a narrow definition of precision medicine by delimiting research to selected patients within specialized care settings. Such a biased approach would likely further widen the disconnect between medical discovery and practical application for the greater population. This is especially true for populations with the highest burden of disease, who have been historically underrepresented in genetic and clinical research. The research and practice of precision medicine need to be integrated within the context of population health. Furthermore, generating valid and generalizable findings can only be achieved if the traditional therapeutic medicine discipline is also integrated within the context of population health, which has successfully developed and improved research methods and tools to deal with broader settings representing the general population.

The IPPH draws upon UChicago’s strengths in the biological, physical, and social sciences to discover new ways to assess disease risk in terms of an individual’s genetic and behavioral profile. It is my vision that this emerging knowledge will be translated into pharmacological and behavioral interventions, improving the health of populations in Chicago and beyond. To achieve this, the IPPH serves as a focal point for population-relevant precision health research, educational infrastructure, and collaboration.

I invite both long-term and new collaborators, students, interested community partners, and  patients at the University of Chicago Medical Centers and elsewhere to join me in revolutionizing our current understanding of disease causation and prevention through this interdisciplinary Institute. Together we can improve population health by identifying, evaluating, and implementing new approaches to disease prevention and management.

Sincerely,

Habibul Ahsan

Dean, Institute for Population and Precision Health