The UM School of Medicine launched a new initiative, “Accelerating Innovation and Discovery in Medicine,” (ACCEL-Med), celebrating the scope of scientific discoveries that impact human health – the vision of Dr. E. Albert Reece, Dean of the UM School of Medicine.

ACCEL-Med launched in November 2013 with a full-day symposium, attended by an external scientific advisory council of internationally-recognized scientific leaders and medical entrepreneurs.   Francis Collins, MD, PhD, director of the National Institutes of Health, gave the inaugural keynote address.

“Our nation has really benefited from being at the forefront of science, technology and innovation,” said Dr. Collins, who spoke about the current environment for biomedical research, including the need for advancing discovery through technology and translational sciences, the importance of continuous innovation and the economic benefits of medical research. Speaking to an overflow crowd of physician-scientists and researchers, Dr. Collins added: “Do not feel shy about justifying why what you do is a really valuable investment for the American public.”

IGS was honored to be selected to be the first presenters for the day’s program.  After Claire Fraser summarized about IGS collaborations, David Rasko spoke about “Application of High Throughput Sequencing to Genomic Epidemiology.”  Next, Rebecca Brotman presented “The Vaginal Microbiome and Women’s Health: Implications for Clinical Translation and then Timothy O’Connor presented “Human Population Genomics with Next-Generation Sequencing.”

More information about the day’s program and the ACCEL-Med initiative is available here.