The Center for Health + Technology (CHeT), led by Ray Dorsey, MD, MBA, and Erika Augustine, MD, MS, operates under the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience with the central mission to revolutionize health research. CHeT aims to modernize clinical research, allowing anyone, anywhere to participate, benefit from discoveries, and receive improved care.
Neurological conditions are the leading cause of global disability, with prevalence on the rise. While progress in understanding the pathophysiology of neurological diseases, including neurodevelopmental and rare neurological conditions, as well as novel therapeutic targets is being made, barriers to translating these breakthroughs remain. These include rising development costs, lengthy and expensive clinical trials, and high failure rates. To overcome these challenges, CHeT is developing innovative research methods, using tools such as smartphones and sensors to enable remote participation and objective measurement of disease.
These technological advancements have had limited application in clinical research to date. CHeT acts as a ‘laboratory’ to develop, evaluate, and disseminate this approach to advance the clinical neuroscience field and speed therapeutic development. This center is a unique resource for the national clinical neuroscience community.
Over the past 25 years, CHeT has pioneered multi-center research studies, enrolling 40,000 individuals across 120 studies, leading to seven FDA-approved therapies. Most recently, CHeT has transformed research and care for Parkinson’s Disease (PD) by leveraging technology. This includes disease models that have identified novel clinical and genetic markers of disease progression, the first two virtual PD research studies, the two largest smartphone studies in PD, the first longitudinal wearable sensor study for PD, and the only national randomized controlled trial of telemedicine for PD.
CHeT is currently leading the development of new capabilities for the next generation of clinical trials and has a team of 80+ full-time employees. To accomplish its mission, CHeT fosters collaborations across the University of Rochester, academic partners, pharmaceutical companies, advocacy groups, and research organizations. CHeT is uniquely positioned to expand this model of clinical research innovation to other neurological disorders, including rare neurological conditions, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and disorders of aging.
