Thirteen years after its initial funding, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) has analyzed 2.5 petabytes of data representing 33 different types of cancer.

That’s no small feat: One petabyte has the storage capacity of 212,000 DVDs.

The U-M Precision Health Investigators Awards request for applications has been released for awards of up to $300,000 each over two years to support research projects that advance the field of precision health with an emphasis on projects that accomplish this through the use and/or enrichment of U-M Precision Health data and tools/methods/techniques.

U-M Precision Health expects to fund up to 12 Investigators Awards in 2018 and will fund additional new projects in 2019. The awards are open to University of Michigan full-time faculty members with a primary appointment in research, instructional (tenure), or clinical tracks. A second grants program, the U-M Precision Health Scholars Awards, which is designed specifically to support early-career investigators (post-docs, graduate students, residents, and trainees), will be announced in April.

The Investigators Awards program employs a two-stage application process. An open call for pre-proposals has been issued, and those pre-proposals are due April 30, 2018. Following evaluation by a panel of faculty with expertise in precision health topics, a subset of entries will be selected and PIs invited to submit full proposals in June.

Find complete information about and apply for the Investigators Awards at https://umms.infoready4.com/#competitionDetail/1768438

Some surgeons might be able to prescribe a third of opioid painkiller pills that they currently give patients and not affect their level of post-surgery pain control, a new study suggests. That would mean far fewer opioids left over to feed the ongoing national crisis of misuse, addiction and overdose.

Much of the effort to develop cures using precision medicine has been for cancer patients, but an area that’s getting more attention and could have more of an impact in the long term is population health, writes Modern Healthcare. The article highlights Precision Health at U-M as an example of taking precision health research to the next level.

How did the United States become the nation consuming 80 percent of the world’s opioids with only 5 percent of the world’s population? How do we solve what some are calling the biggest public health crisis to impact the nation? U-M’s Office of Academic Innovation, in collaboration with the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, hopes to answer some of these questions through a teach-out on the crisis. Faculty experts from across the university will share their research and expertise on opioids, and put the epidemic into perspective.

Come learn more about the newly launched Precision Health at the University of Michigan at an upcoming town hall-style event. Precision Health leaders and staff will be there to share the many ways faculty and researchers across campus can get involved, access resources and collaborate on efforts.