Skip to main content

Verily launches Baseline in hopes of building a model of perfect human health

Verily Life Sciences, formerly Google Life Sciences division, wants to build a model of perfect human health. To do so, it is launching Baseline, a multi-year study with thousands of volunteers who will regularly supply metrics on sleep, fitness, heart rate, genomics, and more.

Baseline, which Google announced in 2014, seeks to “create a map of human health” — an “early discovery platform” that will nail down key correlations between physiological changes and disease. Verily, which is undertaking the study with Duke University and the Stanford Unversity School of Medicine, will enroll about 10,000 participants from half a dozen study sites in California and North Carolina. That is up from a pilot in about 200 people that began three years ago.

Recommended Videos

“What we are really aiming to do is figure out how do we identify people who have a change in their health where we can make an intervention so they don’t come into the hospital?,” Adrian Hernandez, a professor of medicine at Duke, told Business Insider.

Novartis smart contacts
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Researchers will recruit subjects across a range ethnicities and age groups, including groups at risk of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease, to build a nationally representative sample. Participants will have their genomes sequenced and get blood work done at study sites run by Duke and Stanford. Over the course of a year, they will respond to survey questions and upload data from the Study Watch, a digital timepiece that measures electrodermal activity and heart rate.

Verily’s current plan calls for a four-year study, the findings from which will be made available to “qualified researchers.” Jessica Mega, the chief research officer at Verily,  told The Verge that an “executive committee” will review and approve requests for data. Initially, the scope is limited to cancer and heart disease, but researchers hope to extend its length. That will depend on funding, partially — Bloomberg pegs the Baseline study’s cost at $300 million.

Baseline may be Verily’s largest project yet, but it is far from its only one. The health spinoff, which has attracted funding from Singapore investment firm Temasek Holdings and pharmaceutical companies like GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Johnson and Johnson, Biogen, and Dexcom, has been developing glucose-monitoring and autofocus contact lenses. It makes tableware designed to make it easier for people with hand tremors to eat independently, and it’s partnered with a surgical robot spin-out company and a bioelectronics company working to develop ways to use electric signals to treat chronic illnesses.

Kyle Wiggers
Kyle Wiggers is a writer, Web designer, and podcaster with an acute interest in all things tech. When not reviewing gadgets…
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7: the upgrade we’ve been waiting for?
Thre Flip 7 models next to each other

I never really thought that I'd want to go down the route of owning a flip phone, ever since I swore off my Nokia in the early 2000s (you know, the one with the weird felt covering and tiny notification window).

Fast forward two decades, and I'm considering rejoining the race, thanks to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7. Coming in at $1,100, it's not cheap, but it's definitely something different compared to the world of black rectangles, and it it feels like Samsung’s Flip family has finally come of age.

Read more
I used the Galaxy Z Fold 7, here’s why I’m completely smitten
The back of the Galaxy Z Fold 7

We’ve waited several years for Samsung to join the party, but it’s finally here: Samsung has followed rivals like Oppo, OnePlus, and Honor in building a thinner, lighter, and sleeker Galaxy Z Fold 7. It’s an impressive feat of engineering and a major upgrade over previous years.

It’s easy to consider the Fold 7 nothing more than an update to the Galaxy Z Fold 6, but in many ways, it feels like a huge step forward, not just for Samsung but for all folding phones. I spent a few hours with the Galaxy Z Fold 7 in an exclusive preview, and here’s why I absolutely love what Samsung has done this year.

Read more
I tried the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 series – they’re sleek, but with a lot to prove
Watch 8 on a wrist

Trying out the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 and Watch 8 Classic is a tough gig - not in terms of it being a hardship to try out two high-end models, but that it's impossible to assess them with only 30 minutes’ use.

I can easily talk about the improved design and the fit of the straps etc, but the real changes are within the health ecosystem, and they'll need sustained testing to really understand if they're any good.

Read more