Atul Butte, MD, PhD, who served as chief data scientist of Oakland-based University of California, died June 13 at the age of 55.
He was also the inaugural director of the San Francisco-based UCSF Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute and the co-founder of the Center for Data-driven Insights and Innovation, helping unify data across University of California Health’s six academic medical centers. He had been fighting cancer, friends and colleagues posted on social media.
“Atul was one of those rare people whose impact radiated out from him, growing exponentially across the countless lives he inspired, and the never-ending cascade of people across the biomedical community who he shaped,” Aaron Neinstein, MD, a former UCSF colleague, wrote on LinkedIn. “Every talk he gave, every student he mentored, every hallway conversation where he bubbled with enthusiasm, he added more and more energy, ideas, inspiration, and hope to our communities.”
In 2024, Dr. Butte won the highest honor in biomedical informatics, the Morris F. Collen Award of Excellence, one of numerous recognitions he received over the years. He was also UCSF’s Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics, Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, and Epidemiology and Biostatistics, studying responsible clinical uses for healthcare AI.
Several colleagues described Dr. Butte as a “visionary.” In a 2023 Becker’s article, he predicted what healthcare would look like in 100 years.
“We will certainly have medicines that target proteins and DNA in ways we can’t imagine today,” he said. “I’m imagining magical ‘scalpels’ for tomorrow’s genomic surgeons, to fix things in utero or in cancer. I am also guessing we will have more medicines to compensate for our environment: drugs that protect our lungs from airborne pollutants and drugs that protect our organs from chronically ingested and imbibed toxins.
“We will be measuring much more from patients (think about serum proteins and molecules, circulating DNA, sugars and fats), and measuring those components much more frequently. … Networks of clinical data sharing will exist to help share the very best medical care practices, so that more care providers can see how to provide care in unfamiliar cases.”
Dr. Butte is survived by his wife and daughter.
