How Data Can Save Your Life

Thanks to a pivotal commitment from University Trustee Alberto Duran, WG’93, Penn is creating a home for scientists, engineers, and medical researchers to explore new frontiers at the intersection of data science and health care.

The Duran Center for Data-Driven Medical Diagnostics will be housed in Penn Engineering’s forthcoming Data Science Building, which will be named Amy Gutmann Hall. The Center will include training areas where medical researchers learn about the latest tools and techniques in data science, while engineering scholars are educated in the theory and practice of medical diagnostics.

“Innovations in medicine are increasingly coming from advances in the ways we collect data from the human body, including smart watches and medical imaging,” says David Issadore, Associate Professor of Bioengineering at Penn Engineering. “Perhaps most exciting is the opportunity to help doctors and patients identify diseases at a very early stage,” Issadore says.

Duran, who also serves on the Penn Europe, Middle East, and Africa Leadership Committee, was inspired by attending talks in London by Perelman School of Medicine professors Frances Jensen and Robert Vonderheide, who discussed how partnerships between Penn Medicine and Penn Engineering have sparked innovations in neuroscience and radiology.

“The more I heard about how faculty across the University are collaborating to create health care solutions, the more excited I became to be a part of it,” says Duran, who has also established an undergraduate scholarship and a President’s Distinguished Professorship at the University. “We see the Duran Center as a place where partnerships can be formed, knowledge can be elevated, and research can be translated into lifesaving technology. I consider it an honor, and a personal duty, to help further this bold and beneficial work.”

Vijay Kumar, the Nemirovsky Family Dean at Penn Engineering, shares Duran’s vision and excitement. “New technologies and systems that bridge and advance both engineering and the health sciences will continue to grow in number and impact over the coming decade, empowering both patients and clinicians with the promise of personalized care,” says Kumar. “Alberto Duran’s transformational support creates a new venue for multidisciplinary teams of engineers, computer scientists, radiologists, and pathologists to collaborate and imagine.”

At the core of Penn Engineering’s mission is integrating knowledge and translating research into solutions that improve people’s lives. The Duran Center for Data-Driven Medical Diagnostics will harness Penn’s vast wealth of technical and biomedical knowledge to accelerate research that leads to breakthrough health care.”Vijay Kumar, Nemirovsky Family Dean, Penn Engineering

The computational revolution in medicine is at hand, and Penn Engineering is uniquely positioned to lead the way. Penn Engineering scholars can access Penn Medicine’s vast warehouse of approved clinical data for research at the Duran Center and work with centers that are already harnessing the power of data for enhancing health care.

“Data science has the potential to advance our understanding of health conditions in a faster and more precise manner than we were able to in prior years,” says Raina Merchant, Director of the Penn Medicine Center for Digital Health. “Through emerging partnerships that can be born at the Duran Center, new insights from data can be evaluated and integrated to enable more patient-centered and personalized care.”

By elevating the use of data science for health care and facilitating collaborations with Penn Medicine, the Duran Center will fuel the next generation of medical marvels.