If you know anything about Google, you probably know that when they recently became Alphabet, their moonshot projects and a few other departments got their own sub-companies. This includes Google Life Sciences, whose main focus is the development of bioresponsive tech. This department announced they are joining forces with the American Heart Association to change the direction of heart disease research by backing and directing novel studies. The way they plan to do this is by pumping $25 million each, or $50 million total over the course of 5 years.
Heart disease is responsible, statistically, for one in three deaths worldwide and current research methods, normally backed by smaller piecemeal capital investments, have been doing quite well, but have so far failed to venture far enough off the reservation to turn up many new developments, instead offshooting or deepening old research. Together, Google and AHA are throwing $50 million over the course of five years into one team tasked with innovative new research, with the end goal of giving medical science a deeper and richer look at cardiovascular disease in particular, by exploring it from new viewpoints. This giant investment is the largest one-time research investment in the history of the American Heart Association.
At some point in early 2016, the plan is for Google Life Sciences and the American Heart Association to hold a meeting to appoint a team leader and discuss how to proceed with the project. In a general sense, the team leader is tasked with designing the program, getting a team together and providing strategic oversight during the course of the program. A cardiologist would be preferred, but Google Life Sciences and the American Heart Association have said any background may do, if it’s just the right person. This collaboration will be overseen and advised throughout the process by Google Life Sciences and the American Heart Association, giving the research team more access to and integration with the newest technology than ever before. Groups that have never come together on the issue before, like engineers, researches, designers and some of the top medical and technical minds of our time, are set to tackle this issue together with Google Life Sciences and the American Heart Association’s blessing.