Our Mission
The primary mission of the Center for Precision Medicine (CPM) is to enhance the precision of individualized patient treatments by providing unique resources for biomarkers and imaging. There is a clear unmet need to find new solutions to cross the so called “valley of death” to take remarkable basic science discoveries to the clinic. The CPM seeks to help investigators cross the valley of death by incorporating and integrating biomarker and imaging data with phenotyping from clinical trials, pre-clinical models and cell culture. Biomarker imaging and discovery, basic science breakthroughs and patient-centered bioinformatics will be integrated by CPM to advance therapeutics via collaborative synergistic research. CPM plans to support UT Health San Antonio’s goal to be a regional and national leader in precision health.
Careful tracking of individual differences in lifestyle and environment with biomarkers will help researchers uncover the most relevant biochemical paths that can accelerate deliverance of precision medicine and precision healthcare. Therapies will be designed based on precise molecular diagnoses for individual patients, in partnership with the Center for Innovative Drug Discovery (CIDD), the Institute for the Integration of Medicine and Science (IIMS), and other strategic partnerships (e.g. UTSA, SWRI, Texas Biomed). CPM will analyze a spectrum of biological variables and clinical parameters as well as environmental and lifestyle data.
With Artificial Intelligence (AI) software rapidly advancing and changing healthcare, and the multi-omics revolution going full stream, the CPM is uniquely positioned to respond to this need due to its leading-edge spatial omics tools, in vivo imaging capacities and biomarker program. CPM will enable UT Health San Antonio to be a leader not only in the region but throughout the country to incorporate omics and imaging data for delivering the best healthcare decisions and novel treatments for our patients and communities.
Our Vision
In the short-term, CPM will apply the tenets of precision medicine and precision health to major chronic diseases, including cardio-metabolic complications of obesity and diabetes, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Long-term, CPM will generate the knowledge base needed to advance precision medicine and health in other chronic and acutecomplex conditions, optimizing health for civilians, our unique patient population in South Texas and the warfighter. CPM will also leverage the biobanks at UT Health San Antonio and contribute to the educational experience of students in the health sciences in quantitative biology as applied to clinical medicine.
Our Leadership
Dr. Kumar Sharma, Professor, Chief of Nephrology and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio, will be the inaugural Director of the new Center for Precision Medicine (CPM). Dr. James Lechleiter, Professor of Cell Systems and Anatomy at UT Health San Antonio, will be the co-Director.
