About Us
What Was PHRT?
PHRT was an initiative aimed at advancing the life science revolution toward individualized medicine. Its vision was a future in which a person’s unique biological makeup guides decisions on how to maintain and restore health.
Through a range of research grants, PHRT supported researchers across the ETH Domain and helped foster collaboration in personalized health research.
What is personalized health?
Advances in life sciences and information technology have enabled researchers to collect and analyze large volumes of health data. This includes clinical data, multi-omics data (such as genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics), imaging data, biobank data, and health data collected by individuals.
These developments have made it possible to use each patient’s individual molecular profile and characteristics to guide medical decisions, support disease prevention, and improve therapies.
Governance & Organisation
PHRT had a compact administrative structure. Funded projects were selected on a competitive basis according to their ranking in peer review and their alignment with the aims and scope of the respective calls for proposals.
Responsibility for achieving the stated goals, managing funds, recruiting and supervising personnel, and reporting progress was delegated to the respective project leaders. This structure enabled the effective allocation of financial resources to research projects and infrastructure needs, based on the evaluation criteria defined within the Strategic Focus Area (SFA).
The PHRT office was hosted by ETH Zurich. It supported the Executive Committee and was responsible for the administrative and daily operations of the SFA, including the preparation of meetings, financial controlling, budgeting, and reporting.
Partnership Agreement
Life science research has undergone a profound transformation in recent years. Medicine is increasingly evolving toward “individualized medicine,” where a person’s unique biological makeup guides decisions on how to maintain and restore health.
The Strategic Focus Area Personalized Health and Related Technologies (PHRT) contributed to this global development through cutting-edge research. The ETH Domain initiative was coordinated with universities, hospitals, and other initiatives in Switzerland, notably the Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN).
ETH Zurich, Empa, EPFL, and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) served as the core ETH Domain partners of the Strategic Focus Area Personalized Health and Related Technologies (PHRT).
Featured Projects
From pioneering research to groundbreaking medical technologies, explore a selection of projects that contributed to advancing personalized healthcare through PHRT.