Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, NIH
I am very pleased to announce the selection of Eric Dishman as director of the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) Cohort Program. Eric will lead the NIH’s effort to build the PMI landmark longitudinal research study of one million or more U.S. volunteers to expand our ability to improve health and treat disease through precision medicine. Eric comes to the NIH with a deep understanding of the initiative, having played a critical role as a member of the PMI Working Group that deliberated intensively for several months last year to develop the design for this audacious study.
Eric brings a wealth of health innovation experience to the PMI effort—as a social scientist and researcher, entrepreneur and business leader, patient and patient advocate, and policy advocate and thought leader. He has pioneered and co-founded some of the nation’s first and largest research and policy programs focused on telehealth, personal health records, independent living technologies for seniors, and behavioral markers for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes, and heart disease. He is widely recognized as a global leader on home and community-based care and personalized care, as well as for inventing innovation techniques that incorporate ethnography, the systematic study of people and cultures, and other social methods into the design and development of new technologies.
