Cloudera Approves First Grant Applications for Precision Medicine Initiative

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 28 — Cloudera, the global provider of the fastest, easiest, and most secure data management and analytics platform built on Apache Hadoop and the latest open source technologies, today announced it has approved the first set of applications received through its own Cloudera Precision Medicine Initiative in support of President Obama’s national Precision Medicine Initiative to advance the use of data and analytics in precision medicine. With support from the company’s Precision Medicine Advisory Council, Cloudera announces Baylor College of Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Irell & Manella School of Biology at the City of Hope Medical Center, the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami and the Georgia Tech Research Institute will all receive grants of enterprise-class big data software and training to help drive health insights from merging multi-omic and phenotype data at the patient level.

“Unleashing the power of data through open community and collaboration is the right approach to solve a complex problem like precision medicine,” said DJ Patil, Chief Data Scientist, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “Initiatives like this one which break data silos and share data in an open platform across industries may speed genomics-based research and ultimately save lives.”

To be chosen for the grant, applicants must be research labs within a United States’ institute of higher education, have a precision medicine research lab and undergo a successful review by the company’s advisory committee. Cloudera looks for precision medicine research that includes genotype, phenotype, environment and other data sets that may result in some translational result in the future and which can demonstrate specific applications for precision medicine research.

Cloudera’s commitment to grant software and training was announced in February as part of the White House Precision Medicine Initiative Summit. Aside from providing training to 1,000 precision medicine researchers in the latest big data technologies and data science techniques, Cloudera committed to donate subscriptions to its big data software and training services to 50 institutions working in the field.

“Cloudera believes the capacity for precision medicine research to fundamentally change disease diagnosis and treatment starts with data coming from genomics, environment, patient history and more,” said Mike Olson, Cloudera Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer. “Making our first set of software and training grants means that these organizations can start to utilize big data tools to store, process and analyze copious amounts of data in the field. We are absolutely confident that data will drive advances in the field, and we are pleased to be collaborating with the White House Precision Medicine Initiative and with these institutions to make that happen.”

Cloudera plans to open the next round of applications via web submittal in early November.  For more information on the application process and details, please visit: www.cloudera.com/about-cloudera/precision-medicine-initiative.html

About Cloudera

Cloudera delivers the modern data management and analytics platform built on Apache Hadoop and the latest open source technologies. The world’s leading organizations trust Cloudera to help solve their most challenging business problems with Cloudera Enterprise, the fastest, easiest and most secure data platform available for the modern world. Our customers efficiently capture, store, process and analyze vast amounts of data, empowering them to use advanced analytics to drive business decisions quickly, flexibly and at lower cost than has been possible before. To ensure our customers are successful, we offer comprehensive support, training and professional services. Learn more at http://cloudera.com.

Source: Cloudera