In late 2012, Temple University’s leadership renewed their commitment to the conduct of scientific research in new and high impact fields. Under this renewal it was decided to bring on faculty with research focuses in a variety of fields, many of which had not existed at Temple previously.

Among the new faculty recruited were individuals who focused on research areas such as genomics, genome evolution, population genetics, and evolutionary medicine. It was felt that this new faculty, as well as existing faculty with interests in these areas, should have a cross-disciplinary organization in which to collaborate. As a result, the Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary Medicine was founded in 2014 with Sudhir Kumar, Ph.D. Biology, as its founding director.

Since then, iGEM has undertaken efforts to meet its original mandate; to conduct innovative and impactful cross-disciplinary research in the fields of genomics and evolutionary medicine. In this vein iGEM has worked to build collaborative relationships with the College of Science and Technology, the College of Medicine, the College of Public Health, and the College of Liberal Arts.

Among the first research initiatives undertaken by the institute was the Temple Genomic and Analytics Collaborative, which began its collaborative work in Academic Year 2015-2016. The aims of this initiative can be seen at its page (insert page hyperlink) as well as its various constituent projects.