The School of Technology for Public Health is reimagining public health infrastructure in the 21st century to create more integrated, responsive and resilient public health systems. This new field of public health technology will be a catalyst to build and deploy products, programs and systems needed to sculpt the future of public health.
Use-inspired research to maximize impact
To address critical issues, like the impact of climate on health, women’s health, and the opioid crisis, the School of Technology for Public Health focuses on accelerating, disseminating and implementing discoveries and innovations across and at the intersection of the following three key impact areas: mind-brain health, metabolic health and environmental health.
Recognizing the interconnected nature of these impact areas, research within the school will include a focus on comprehensive public health solutions that incorporate an understanding of how these areas influence and intersect with one another.
This integrated research approach is crucial to not only addressing pressing health issues, but also to the broader context in which health domains interact to promote resilient and sustainable communities.
At the center of innovation, locally and globally
Known as “one university in many places,” ASU has a strong presence across the state of Arizona, the nation, with four campuses — Downtown, Polytechnic, Tempe and West Valley — in the Phoenix metropolitan area, and reach beyond national borders with locations in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and international partnerships like the PLuS Alliance with King’s College London and the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
The School of Technology for Public Health is situated in the Phoenix Bioscience Core, a 30-acre plot of land located in the heart of downtown Phoenix that brings together nationally ranked medical education and academic research with globally recognized leaders in life sciences, like Translational Genomics Research Institute, an affiliate of the City of Hope, the International Genomics Consortium, Exact Sciences, Dignity Health, and the Phoenix branch of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
In addition to the Phoenix Bioscience Core, ASU has six other Innovation Zones that span four million square feet of space in the Phoenix metropolitan area, providing unique opportunities for diverse companies, from startups to established leaders, to co-locate and collaborate with ASU students and researchers. In fact, ASU currently colocates with more than 100 companies and provides incubator space for startups and high-end occupancy for Fortune 500 companies in these Innovation Zones.
Through Innovation Zones and MedTech and health tech acceleration, ASU rapidly moves discoveries off campus and into community and clinical settings through cross-sector partnerships, and by generating patents, licensing deals and startups. ASU historically places along schools like MIT within the top 10 — and in some instances the top 5 universities without medical schools.
Since 2012, Skysong Innovations, ASU’s exclusive intellectual property management company obtained nearly 1,400 life-science invention disclosures, secured more than 500 U.S. life-science patents, completed more than 300 option or license agreements for life-science technologies, and facilitated the launch of nearly 90 new life-science startup companies — the vast majority of which were in the biomedical field.