Jake Chen | Triton Endowed Professor and Founding Director, SPARC
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Dr. Jake Y. Chen is the Triton Endowed Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Medicine, with joint appointments in Genetics, Computer Science, and Biomedical Engineering. He is the founding director of the Systems Pharmacology AI Research Center (SPARC) at UAB and was previously the founding director of the Indiana Center for Systems Biology and Personalized Medicine. Over 25 years, he has pioneered AI-driven biomedical informatics, network biology, and computational drug discovery, leading the development of systems pharmacology models, multi-omics AI frameworks, and digital twin simulations for precision medicine. His research integrates clinical, genomic, and real-world data to transform drug discovery and disease modeling, resulting in over 200 peer-reviewed publications and 200+ invited talks worldwide. Beyond academia, Dr. Chen has played a critical role in shaping national biomedical AI policy and global regulatory frameworks. He has advised the NIH and U.S. Congress on Type 1 Diabetes research funding through NIDDK panels and collaborated with the FDA on global regulatory coordination efforts for AI-driven biomedical innovation. As Contact MPI of CONNECT, an NIH U54-funded national AI-infrastructure initiative (2024-29), he leads multi-institutional collaborations to develop AI-ready, large-scale biomedical knowledge networks that aggregate over $1B of past NIH investment of multi-omics data generations. His impact extends to clinical translational research, contributing to the UAB Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS), where he has influenced data governance and biomedical informatics infrastructure. Dr. Chen is a recognized global leader in AI-driven systems pharmacology and precision medicine, holding fellow distinctions with ACMI, AIMBE, AMIA, and ACM distinguished members. He was named one of the “Top 100 AI Leaders in Drug Discovery and Healthcare” (2019) by Deep Knowledge Analytics and received the CAST-USA Pioneer Award (2023). His entrepreneurial achievements include founding Medeolinx, LLC, successfully licensing the GeneTerrain AI platform to top pharmaceutical firms, and advising biotech, pharma, and government agencies on AI-driven drug discovery strategies. He serves on the editorial boards of BMC Bioinformatics, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA), and Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Big Data. A trusted advisor in AI-health policy, he actively engages with NIH, NSF, FDA, and international research consortia, helping shape AI governance in precision medicine and regulatory science. With expertise in bioinformatics, AI, computational medicine, and regulatory frameworks, Dr. Chen continues leading high-impact AI-driven biomedical innovations, bridging computational science, real-world healthcare applications, and national AI policy leadership.