Speaker Profile

Biography
Joseph Grzymski, PhD, is the Chief Scientific Officer of Renown Health, the Director of the Renown Institute for Health Innovation, and a faculty member at the Desert Research Institute (DRI). In the past four years, he has been responsible for expanding DRI's applied research portfolio and has received funding from a variety of federal, state, and private sector sources. Dr. Grzymski conceived of the Healthy Nevada Project and now leads a diverse team of 40 geneticists, data scientists, programmers, engineers, clinicians, and doctors as a part of the Renown Institute for Health Innovation, which functions between Renown and DRI. The Healthy Nevada Project (HNP) is a population genetics study that has enrolled, consented, and collected DNA and other health determinants data from more than 50,000 participants throughout Nevada. There are two society-scale value propositions for the HNP: 1) increase educational attainment and economic output via population health strategies to improve health outcomes; 2) a prevention strategy using genetics to detect inherited disease risks for conditions that, if detected early, lower mortality and morbidity. This risk assessment is poorly ascertained in the current clinical setting. The HNP is currently returning results of CDC Tier 1 conditions while focusing research efforts on lifestyle diseases such as cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, diabetes, liver disease, and addiction. Dr. Grzymski maintains an active research lab in basic and applied research related to DNA damage and the transcriptional regulation of metabolism related to stress. Dr. Grzymski is a Fulbright Scholar and a proud graduate of Bowdoin College.