Partnership leverages complementary expertise in human health, informed by longitudinal health data, to advance research aimed at identifying earlier signals of disease including cancer, cognitive decline, and cardiometabolic conditions.
AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Function, the company building the operating system for human health, today announced a research partnership with NYU Grossman School of Medicine, one of the nation's premier academic medical institutions, to advance a singular, audacious goal: to see disease coming and stop it in its tracks.
The partnership brings together two complementary, longitudinal views of health. NYU Grossman School of Medicine, which is part of NYU Langone Health, offers deep, longitudinal insight into how illness unfolds and is treated over time across a large and diverse population who have needed care. Function, which offers access to advanced lab testing and imaging, brings broad multimodal longitudinal health monitoring data across a large cross-section of the US population, both before and after disease takes hold. Together, these complementary strengths form the foundation required to build a new generation of AI models designed to identify the earliest whispers of disease, support more timely and informed clinical decision-making, and help shift medicine from reacting to illness toward earlier intervention.
"The history of medicine is a chronicle of remarkable advances in technology, but for too long we have used our best tools last. We typically deploy advanced imaging and/or blood testing only after people are already sick," said Daniel K. Sodickson, M.D., PhD, Chief Medical Scientist at Function and former Chief of Innovation in Radiology at NYU Langone Health. "This partnership flips that script. By pairing Function's multifaceted view of health as it unfolds with NYU Grossman's world-class understanding of disease and its treatment, we can build medical intelligence that sees around corners, warning of cancer before it announces itself, flagging changes in the brain before memory begins to fail, and predicting future heart problems while there is still time to act."
"The future that this partnership could unlock is profound: a world where the expectation is not only that we treat disease, but that we find disease early, and even prevent it," said Michael P. Recht, M.D., Louis Marx Chair of Radiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. "This collaboration reflects what academic medicine does best: joining rigorous science and clinical expertise with bold new partners to change what is possible for every person. Together we have an extraordinary opportunity to define the future of health."
The Work Ahead
The partnership will pursue an ambitious research agenda, including but not limited to:
- Early warning for cancer — detecting the quiet signals of cancer early, when intervention is simplest and most effective.
- Monitoring brain health — evaluating subtle changes over time that may provide insight into brain health and cognitive risk.
- Cardiometabolic risk — developing and evaluating approaches to assessing future heart and metabolic risk earlier, informing more personalized guidance, and supporting healthier trajectories.
Every tool, model, and peer-reviewed publication emerging from the partnership will be held to the highest standards of scientific rigor, building on NYU Grossman's longstanding reputation for excellence and reinforcing Function's mission of improving health through carefully grounded medical intelligence.
The partnership extends the work of Function's Medical Intelligence Lab™ (MIL), which the company introduced in November 2025. Co-directed by Dr. Sodickson, MIL aims to build a GPS for members' health, tracking where people have been, mapping out the health landscape around them, and using the best of human and machine intelligence to predict their future paths, providing rigorous and personalized action to empower people to live 100 healthy years. Through this collaboration, NYU Grossman's clinical research expertise and Function's experience in longitudinal health measurement and machine learning will come together to accelerate the development and evaluation of new models for preventive health and guidance of therapy.
The partnership builds on a year of rapid expansion for Function, following its Q2 acquisitions of Getlabs and SuppCo and its recent $450 million growth financing from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund. Together, these milestones are accelerating Function's mission to pull the inevitable and optimistic future of human health into the present for as many people as possible.
About Function
Function is on a mission to enable everyone to live 100 healthy years. A groundbreaker in its category, Function has changed the game by making lab testing, MRI and CT, and longitudinal health data accessible, understandable, and actionable—serving millions. Function's Medical Intelligence Lab™ (MI Lab™) is leveraging a dedicated clinical team to develop a continuous learning system that helps its members see, understand, and act on their biology over time. Members receive access to 160+ lab tests—including biannual testing—for just $365/year, equivalent to $1 per day, covering the heart, hormones, thyroid, liver, kidneys, heavy metal exposures, nutrient levels, inflammation, potential cancer signals, and more. Each member's results are integrated into an intelligent, personalized interface designed to support powerfully informed decision-making. Function members can also access (for an additional cost) MRI and CT that are designed to see signs of cancer and hundreds of other conditions. Function believes everyone should have the power to own their health.
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SOURCE Function Health
