PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Chan Soon-Shiong Institute for Advanced Health (CSS Institute) announced today that Mayor Phil Gordon will join the CSS Institute when he steps down after eight years as Mayor of the nation’s sixth largest city at the end of this year. Mayor Gordon will lead the CSS Institute’s growing interests in Arizona.
The CSS Institute was founded early in 2011 by philanthropist Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D., and has rapidly developed its presence in California, where Dr. Soon-Shiong is based, and in Arizona. The CSS Institute announced in March that it was developing two data centers in Phoenix and Scottsdale, dedicated to health information, with more data center development planned near Sky Harbor airport. The first two data centers are now operational. The CSS Institute has also taken delivery of a unique, high performance computing facility, custom designed to perform rapid whole genome analysis. This “supercomputer” is now in Phoenix and operational. The CSS Institute plans further development in Phoenix, and will work closely with both Arizona State University and the University of Arizona. An affiliated body funded by Dr. Soon-Shiong, the Healthcare Transformation Institute, led by former Mayo Clinic CEO Dr. Denis Cortese, was established in Phoenix in partnership with both universities in 2010.
“Phoenix is becoming a healthcare hub,” said Dr. Soon-Shiong, who also heads National LambdaRail (NLR), a 12,000 mile high performance optical fiber network linking hundreds of research institutions across the United States. He explained that the CSS Institute’s data centers and supercomputer are now linked to NLR, and would soon be connected via NLR with genomic sequencing centers, medical researchers and healthcare practitioners throughout the country. Phoenix would therefore be a transportation hub for large genomic health data sets, as well as a center for data storage and genomic analysis, all linked to hospitals and physicians to support clinical decision-making, thereby for the first time bringing the promise of genomic medicine, and the power of supercomputing to the point of care.
“So Phoenix is really in a pivotal position,” he continued. “Mayor Gordon has been a strong promoter of the life sciences, and I could not think of a better person to join us in the non-profit sector to help build a transformative national healthcare infrastructure in which Phoenix will play a crucial role.”
“I have always said that being Mayor of Phoenix is the best job in the world, but Dr. Soon-Shiong’s work may well be the most important,” said Mayor Phil Gordon. “I am convinced that, because of the technology infrastructure he is committing to our future, Phoenix will soon be to 21st century health what Silicon Valley is to the internet. I look forward to continuing my service to the future of our community in this new and wonderful way.”
ABOUT THE CHAN SOON-SHIONG (CSS) INSTITUTE
The CSS Institute, organized as a 501 (c) 3 non-profit medical research entity, was established in 2011 with core funding from Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong and his wife Michele B. Chan, who have pledged through their family foundation $1 billion for healthcare and health information projects. The CSS Institute currently operates in both California and Arizona and is exploring relationships with other states.