An Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove: A Conversation with Dr. Atul Butte
Aug 23, 2023
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Dr. Atul Butte, a pioneering informatician, discusses his career, from pediatric endocrinology to trailblazing work with biomedical data. Topics include his entrepreneurial journey, the importance of utilizing electronic health record data, building neural networks in AI, the connection between pediatric endocrinology and informatics, the role of a chief data scientist in understanding human disease, the power of public speaking, the impact of the Bay Dol Act on academic researchers, managing data and infrastructure, and driving AI in medicine.
Prof. Atul Butte promotes the destigmatization of entrepreneurial tendencies in academia and encourages the establishment of companies based on research findings.
Academia should adopt a mindset similar to that of government-funded universities in India, where students are encouraged to create careers rather than just find them.
The Bayh-Dole Act has enabled academic institutions to commercialize inventions from federally funded research, driving economic growth through spin-off companies and job creation.
Deep dives
Using Public Gene Expression Data for Drug Implications
This paper, published in Science Translational Medicine, showcases the use of public gene expression data for discovering and validating drug implications. The researchers harnessed large amounts of disease data available on the internet and combined them with drug data to make predictions about potential drug repurposing. They then proceeded to test these predictions in animal models and even clinical trials. The approach demonstrated the power of leveraging publicly available data to identify new therapeutic possibilities and accelerate drug discovery.
Embracing Entrepreneurship in Academia
The summary highlights how Prof. Atul Butte's approach has been to destigmatize entrepreneurial tendencies in academia and promote the establishment of companies based on research findings. He takes pride in his conflicts of interest slide, which showcases his involvement with multiple companies. Prof. Butte encourages his mentees to file disclosures and start companies if their invention warrants it. He also highlights the advantageous environment in the Bay Area, where entrepreneurship is encouraged and companies can be seen as a natural extension of academic research.
The Government Funding Careers in Academia
Prof. Butte shares a story from India where students at an elite university were told by their Chancellor that the government funded them to create careers, not necessarily find careers. He emphasizes that academia should adopt a similar mindset. He notes that receiving federal funding as graduate students is not about selfish advancement, but about training individuals to build careers that will contribute to society and create jobs. He argues that researchers should see themselves as economic drivers and embrace the opportunity to make translational impact beyond publishing papers.
Bayh-Dole Act and Economic Impact
The Bayh-Dole Act is acknowledged as a crucial piece of legislation that enables academic institutions to commercialize inventions stemming from federally funded research. Prof. Butte explains that it has allowed universities and hospitals to establish technology transfer offices, file patents, and facilitate the commercialization of research findings. He emphasizes that this act has significantly increased the ripple effect of federal funding, as it enables researchers to drive economic growth through spin-off companies and job creation.
Overview of Role as Chief Data Scientist for UC System
As the Chief Data Scientist for the UC system, the speaker's responsibilities include writing papers, grants, and managing a lab at UC and UCSF. They also oversee their institute at UCSF, with a focus on recruiting and retaining data compute experts. Initially, they worked on pooling data for operational and cost-saving purposes, as well as improving the quality of care delivery. Eventually, they opened up the data for researchers, providing access to a vast dataset of approximately 9 million patients treated over several years.
The Impact of AI Deployment in Healthcare
The speaker acknowledges that clinicians will play a significant role in driving AI deployment in healthcare. They emphasize the importance of clinicians who understand informatics and are willing to start companies or champion AI use cases in the field. The speaker believes that leadership is key to successfully leveraging AI in healthcare systems. They also discuss the need for validating use cases with multiple doctors and the potential for patient-facing decision support tools built on top of the data made available to patients. Overall, the speaker sees a future where AI and data-driven insights have a transformative impact on healthcare systems.
In this episode, pioneering informatician Dr. Atul Butte guides listeners through his storied career, from his early days as a pediatric endocrinologist and informatician in Boston to his trailblazing work on the West Coast. Dr. Butte describes his trailblazing efforts to both harness large-scale public biomedical data and share patient data across the entire UC Health System. Dr. Butte also discusses his entrepreneurial journey, including the genesis and vision behind companies like NuMedii. Dr. Butte is the Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg Distinguished Professor at UCSF and the Chief Data Scientist of the UC Health System.
