Johns Hopkins Leverages Microsoft AI for Precision Medicine

Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM) and Microsoft Azure have announced a partnership to leverage Microsoft’s artificial intelligence and analytics tools for accelerated precision medicine discoveries.

The five-year collaboration will aim to support JHM’s inHealth precision medicine initiative, a program that focuses on advancing personalized medicine for improved healthcare. inHealth uses new tools to understand and manage patients’ health, informed by their broader health history and environment.

The inHealth program integrates JHM’s leadership in healthcare research with expertise from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab.

To support the inHealth program, Johns Hopkins has launched 16 Precision Medicine Centers of Excellence, where researchers are working toward breakthroughs across several diseases, including multiple sclerosis and prostate cancer. In the next five years, Johns Hopkins plans to have 50 centers.

Through the partnership with Microsoft, Johns Hopkins will combine its own expertise with the capabilities of AI, leading to faster discoveries that will benefit precision healthcare.

“Johns Hopkins is committed to leading the way in precision medicine, and our relationship with Microsoft will help us achieve that goal,” said Paul B. Rothman, MD, CEO of JHM and the Frances Watt Baker, MD, and Lenox D. Baker Jr., MD, dean of the medical faculty.

“Using Azure will improve our ability to develop innovative solutions and treatments for our patients, and we are excited to collaborate with Microsoft to push the boundaries of science and medicine even further.”

Johns Hopkins will maintain control over its data throughout the partnership. JHM makes the ethical use of data a top priority through all its partnerships with patients. All projects are compliant with appropriate privacy regulations and JHM maintains strict control over its data, including through the use of its Institutional Review Board and its Internal Data Trust Council that reviews data use across JHM.

This partnership will build on the collaborative efforts from JHM and Microsoft. In June 2019, JHM used Microsoft tools to build its Precision Medicine Analytics Platform (PMAP), an innovative platform that enables data collection and analysis from a wide range of sources in a secure environment.

PMAP facilitates big data research across the JHU enterprise, helping providers make discoveries that will improve patient care.

“This is a particularly promising moment for harnessing big data, because high-powered computers can analyze newly available troves of information, including data from genetic sequencing, heart monitors, images and electronic medical records,” Antony Rosen, vice dean for research at Hopkins Medicine, said when PMAP was launched.

“New technologies make it possible for researchers to combine and analyze data that before was hard to quantify, such as text from clinic notes.”

The new agreement between JHM and Microsoft will allow JHM’s inHealth initiative to expand the use of other Microsoft resources, including advanced sciences, AI, machine learning, and data analytics.

“It is a distinct privilege to partner with many of the world’s leading physicians, scientists and engineers at JHM as they use Microsoft Azure and its AI and machine learning capabilities to support some of the most advanced research and breakthroughs in precision medicine,” said Gregory Moore, MD, PhD, corporate vice president of Microsoft Health.

“I’m inspired by the collaboration and its bold goals to improve health for all by bringing together some of the world’s best minds in medicine and technology to deliver the future of medical science innovation.”