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Howard Jacob On Funding, Rare Diseases, and the Origins of ARCH

July 30, 2024

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In this episode of Trends from the Trenches, host Stan Gloss speaks with Howard Jacob, vice president of genomics research at AbbVie. They discuss Jacob’s beginnings at AbbVie, data siloing and “my data vs. our data” issues, and the role of funding in plan execution and leadership support. Jacob also delves into the origins of the AbbVie R&D Convergence Hub (ARCH—winner of a 2023 Bio-IT World Innovative Practices Award), how they secured a sizable investment for its development, leveraging ARCH for rare diseases, and the strategy behind disseminating info that was generated by ARCH.

Howard J. Jacob, Ph.D., vice president, Genomics Research, and head of Data Convergence
Distinguished Research Fellow and member of the Scientific Governing Board, AbbVie
Dr. Howard Jacob joined AbbVie in January 2018 as the Head of the Genomics Research Center (GRC). Since then, the GRC has doubled in size, growing to over 150 people and collaborates with all Therapeutic Areas (TAs) in Discovery Research and Development; as well as Corporate Strategy and Process Sciences. The GRC has approximately 1 million genomes with clinical data enabling the team to go from national scale data to the individual participant/patient. In addition, the GRC has a range of in-house gene editing technologies, iPSCs capabilities and Omics assays. Howard and the GRC led the unification of AbbVie Bioinformatics teams into one group (previously 8 small teams), which was completed in the Spring of 2020 and now exceeds 70 bioinformaticians. In May 2020, Howard was asked to also lead the R&D wide Data Integration Program (called Data Convergence). Data Convergence is a developing, dynamic cross-functional program with hundreds of people working on it and with it, thanks to the support of their R&D Leadership Team members.

  • Published over 250 peer-reviewed articles, focusing on the genetic dissection of complex diseases and building genomic resources, bioinformatics, and tools to better understand the functional impact of genetic variation
  • Earned his Ph.D. at the University of Iowa and completed a post-doc with Eric Lander and Victor Dzau at MIT, Harvard, and Stanford
  • Prior to AbbVie, served as the Executive Vice President for Genomic Medicine, Chief Genomics Medicine Officer and Faculty Investigator at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology
  • Led the whole genome sequencing core for the NIH-funded Undiagnosed Disease Network and led the clinical teams at the world's first stand-alone genomic medicine clinic, as well as a whole genome clinical sequencing lab
  • Founded four companies and participated on the advisory boards for numerous academic and commercial organizations
  • In 2009, Howard and his team at the Medical College of Wisconsin were the first to use genomic sequencing to save a patient’s (Nicholas Volker) life. Nicholas’ story was highlighted in a Pulitzer Prize winning series in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel  

Host Bio

Stan Gloss

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As co-founder and Evangelist of BioTeam, Stan Gloss has been working to tell the stories of the intersection of science, data and technology since 2002. Gloss joined with fellow founding partners Bill Van Etten and Chris Dagdigian to form BioTeam in 2002 following his tenure in business development with AVAKI Corporation, a pioneer in global grid software solutions, and Blackstone Computing, a computing and IT consulting company for scientists, Gloss led the sales initiative that launched the company in the life sciences market. Gloss earned his MS at the University of Buffalo and was a department chairman and faculty member at Quinnipiac University.

A life science IT consulting firm at the intersection of science, data, and technology, BioTeam builds innovative scientific data ecosystems that close the gap between what scientists want to do with data—and what they can do. Learn more at www.bioteam.net.