New Fred Hutch President, Dr. Thomas Lynch

Dr. Thomas Lynch is in his first week as the new leader of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, but he already has a four-point plan to help guide the Seattle-based institute in its quest to treat and ultimately cure cancer. Given his new home, in the middle of one of the country's hottest tech hubs, it's no coincidence that one of those points heavily involves on the technology industry. "The intersection between tech and data and science is something we are really well-poised to be able to understand and exploit here in the Seattle ecosystem," Lynch said in an interview with GeekWire this week. He cited the quest to "look at very large data sets of electronic medical records, genomic data, proteomic data, and begin to understand who gets cancer, and why do they get it." Fred Hutch currently collaborates with Amazon to mine and decode medical records using artificial intelligence, and reduce the processing time needed to analyz the microbiome. It also partners with Microsoft on a Pacific Northwest data discovery program, and a new $40 million initiative to address global health challenges with AI. A collaboration with Pattern Computer for analyzing genetic variations is an example of the institute's work with smaller tech companies. Dr. Lynch, a veteran physician and scientist, is the sixth president in the 44-year history of the Seattle-based cancer research institution, which employs more than 3,000 people and is ranked first in National Institutes of Health funding among all U.S. independent research centers.  He’s a scientist and oncologist who was part of the first research team to discover how targeted therapies could help lung cancer patients with a specific genetic mutation. Lynch was most recently chief scientific officer of Bristol-Myers Squibb. Prior to that he held leadership roles as CEO of Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, director of the Yale Cancer Center, physician-in-chief at Yale’s Smilow Cancer Hospital, chief of hematology-oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.