18 Sep Google’s Life Sciences Team to be Headed by NIMH Director
Google’s research division, Life Sciences, has announced its next project will be mental illness. They’ve hired Dr. Tom Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) since 2002, to head the effort.
On the NIMH website, Dr. Insel wrote, “That the Life Sciences team at Google would establish a major exploration into mental health is by itself a significant statement — recognizing the burden of illness from psychosis, mood disorders, and autism as well as the opportunity for technology to make a major impact to change the world for the millions affected. The Google philosophy has been to seek a 10x impact on hard problems. I am looking forward to a 10x challenge in mental health.”
Dr. Insel will guide Google’s team in discovering ways to have an impact on understanding, diagnosing and treating mental illness, according to a Google rep’s statement to re/code.
We wish Dr. Insel and the Google Life Sciences team great success!