The American Heart Association (AHA) in partnership with Alphabet Inc.'s Google's Life Sciences announced last Sunday a five-year joint commitment with USD $50 million allocation to collaborate on new research into new approaches of cardiovascular disease. Each agency has committed to invest $25 million to aid in the prevention, causes and treatment of heart attack, which AHA claims to be the largest one-time research investment.
The budget will be used to create a team of varied professions such as engineering, medicine and technology. A leadership group will comprise members from both parties that plan to appoint a person to lead the goal early next year.
They revealed that the appointed person takes control of the $50 million allocation, and this person could be a cardiologist or from any other field. The agreement was revealed during the annual scientific meeting of AHA following Google's attempt to invest on the field of life sciences.
The program was described as "cross functional group of investigators, and lead all efforts towards further finding new causes and drivers of coronary heart disease."
AHA CEO Nancy Brown said, "With its devastating human impact on countless generations of families, cardiovascular disease, and in particular coronary heart disease remains the greatest and deadliest global health challenge we face today."
Google Life Sciences CEO Andy Conrad said the program will show the impact of technology. "This is a fundamentally different kind of model for funding innovation," he said. "The team leader will be able to bring together clinicians, engineers, designers, basic researchers and other experts to think in new ways about the causes of coronary heart disease."
The leading cause of deaths around the world is cardiovascular disease. It accounts for an estimated 17 million deaths, that is, one in every three people. And coronary heart disease is behind the seven million deaths yearly.
"We're already imagining the possibilities when a team like that has access to the full resources of both Google Life Sciences and the AHA -- and we can't wait to see what they discover," Conrad said.
