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The California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine has just been launched, and it is being headed by UCSF’s high profile recent hire, Atul Butte.

According to the published statement, the Initiative’s first mission will be to “inventory the public and private precision medicine assets now available in the state.”

The goal is then to “integrate clinical data with genomic, environmental, socioeconomic, mobile and other data from patients so scientists can understand diseases better and developer more precise therapies.”

This is a clearly a massive effort, and one that should directly address the interpretation bottleneck if successful.

Atul Butte is also probably a good choice to head up the effort. I have been following his work for some time, and he has a very impressive track record in maximizing the potential of diverse data sources to develop novel healthcare advancements.