Yale Establishes Biomedical Data Science Fellowship Program
The fellowship program will provide researchers with mentorship and funding to improve biomedical data science and advance drug discovery and development.
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By Jill McKeon
Yale University and Boehringer Ingelheim have partnered to launch a Biomedical Data Science Fellowship program, to be awarded to post-doctoral researchers focused on drug discovery and development. Up to three candidates per year will receive three-year fellowships, with access to mentorship, research funding, and repositories of biomedical data.
“In partnering with a top-tier academic and research institution like Yale, we aim to recruit and train a new generation of highly skilled data scientists to help us accelerate development of novel treatments and therapies for human disease and improve health outcomes for our patients,” said Jan Nygaard Jensen, PhD, Global Head of Computational Biology and Digital Sciences at Boehringer Ingelheim in a May 10th announcement.
The fellowship program will be jointly led by scientists at pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim along with faculty at the Yale Center for Biomedical Data Science (CBDS). CBDS was founded in 2018 and lives within the Yale School of Medicine. Its researchers study a range of topics including bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, precision medicine, and public health.
The rigorous program will give selected fellows the opportunity to research groundbreaking therapies and use biomedical data to accelerate health timelines and results. The partnership’s goal is to encourage the next generation of data scientists while improving clinical outcomes and emphasizing patient centricity.
“This collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim creates a world-class data science fellowship program that will drive development of novel methods and tools to analyze and interpret the many large and complex biomedical datasets that have been created in recent years,” said Yale School of Public Health Professor of Biostatistics, Genetics, Statistics, and Data Science Hongyu Zhao, PhD.
With medical applications for AI on the rise in recent years, more funding is being funneled into biomedical informatics and other data-driven healthcare disciplines. Yale has named integrated data sciences as one of its priority investment areas for the next decade, according to the statement.
“The vast amount of biomedical data being generated today has created a tremendous need for highly skilled data scientists who can use this information to advance care,” said Xinxin (Katie) Zhu, MD, PhD, executive director of the Yale Center for Biomedical Data Science.
“This helps clinicians and pharmaceutical companies such as Boehringer Ingelheim identify potential new pathways for treatment and eradication of disease.”
Recent studies have shown that advances in biomedical informatics and genomics reflect a promising future for AI and data science in healthcare. A study published in Cell revealed that genomic data can provide more precise insights when it comes to chronic disease management. Also using genomic data and machine learning, a study from PLOS ONE revealed that a simple analysis of blood samples may be able to predict Alzheimer’s.
“Boehringer Ingelheim is pleased to build upon our successful relationships with Yale to foster the next generation of scientists and harness the power of data science to bring our vision of making new and better medicines for patients in need,” said Clive R. Wood, PhD, Corporate Senior Vice President and Global Head of Discovery Research at Boehringer Ingelheim, in the statement.
“We believe our shared ambition and outlook will build a world-class data science community to attract outstanding researchers and work to achieve breakthroughs that patients need.”
