BGI has the highest profile of any genomics groups currently operating in China and is one of the premiere to establish. Surprisingly, Jun Chang, its long-time chief executive, has announced last month that he was stepping down. Chang had been with BGI since the company opened in the year 1999. He is a very reputable professional and had been involved in several national and world-first projects.
Announcing his departure rather quickly must have a good reason. Well, the reason for his departure is that he was going to start his own medical company, one focused on artificial intelligence (AI), as he told Nature in an exclusive new interview.
Chang seems to never leave the startup spirit behind the fast progress of the genomics revolution. He declared that he is excited to take the risks and willing to bet all of his credibility on this new venture.
The interview shows the perspective of the genomics researcher on the future of medicine. He told Nature that his goal is to create an AI program able to analyze enormous amounts of data produced by the next-generation DNA sequencing technologies. Chang said that his project will incorporate a million genomes, one thousand times larger than another ambitious project for 1000-genomes presently in progress. His wildly ambitious goal will need a lot of investment, in Chang's estimation around US $1.5 billion. However, he's confident that money will come.
In Chang's vision, his AI solution would be the holy grail of personal health: by analyzing each user's personal genomic information and checking it against a database of genotype-to-phenotype information, the AI system will be able to construct a personalized health regimen for each. It would signal the risks from hereditary diseases, suggest your susceptibility to depression, but it could also recommend the best exercise regime for your physiology and the best methods for stress relief.
Today, those complex recommendations aren't possible and that's why Chang considers that the amount of information available to scientists should increase by a factor of 10. His project has the potential to change public's attitudes about sharing personal biological information. However, a similar health initiative of Google had to close down when it met with public apathy. It is possible that Chang's project would end up being a direct competitor to Calico, Google's other health project, speculated to be another trial on the concept of digital health monitoring.
