INDIANAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Signaling the next step in its organizational growth, the Fairbanks Institute for Healthy Communities today announced the hiring of Cynthia Gong-Harris for the newly created position of Director of Business Development. Gong-Harris assumed her position on September 12 and will head up efforts to get INbank®, the Fairbanks Institute novel biorepostiory, into the hands of researchers working to develop new drugs and diagnostics that can improve patient outcomes.
The Indianapolis-based Fairbanks Institute began conducting the longitudinal studies needed to create INbank® in 2008. Since then, more than 1,700 Hoosiers have enrolled in the Fairbanks Institute’s coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes studies and provided blood samples and health data that are stored in INbank®. “It is the ability to track people in these studies via 'de-identified' information in their medical records that sets INbank® apart from other biobanks,” said Gong-Harris. “This difference is what attracted me to the Fairbanks Institute as INbank® enables researchers to study factors associated with response to drug treatment, disease risk and disease progression—things that are difficult if not impossible using biobanks with only point-in-time health data.”
INbank® is made possible by the Fairbanks Institute’s partnership with the Regenstrief Institute and the Indiana Network for Patient Care, an established metropolitan health records system that includes data on millions of Hoosiers. The INPC is the source of the ever-increasing data in INbank®.
"Cindy Gong-Harris is a wonderful addition to our team,” stated Fairbanks Institute President and CEO Cynthia Helphingstine. “Her experience providing researchers with solutions to their drug development challenges meshes perfectly with the Fairbanks Institute’s goal of increasing researchers’ use of INbank®, which will accelerate research breakthroughs and speed the development of personalized medicine,” she added. “Cindy’s strategic understanding of the world of research will benefit all of our business development efforts as the Fairbanks Institute enters this exciting next stage in its growth."
About the Fairbanks Institute for Healthy Communities
The Fairbanks Institute for Healthy Communities is a not-for-profit organization working to improve community health by conducting longitudinal cohort studies of the Central Indiana population (The Indiana Health Study) that will enable research that speeds the development of personalized medicine and improvements in patient outcomes. The Fairbanks Institute was created in 2006 with seed funding gifts from the Richard M. Fairbanks and Guidant Foundations in collaboration with BioCrossroads, the Regenstrief Institute, the Indiana University School of Medicine and other Central Indiana community partners. For more information, please visit www.fairbanksinstitute.org or www.indianahealthstudy.org or contact Cynthia Helphingstine at chelphingstine@fairbanksinstitute.org or (317) 238-2459.