PITTSBURGH — Health insurer Highmark and its affiliated hospital network will invest $11 million to further develop a laboratory meant to improve health care through science and engineering in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University.

The Disruptive Health Technology Institute at CMU will be funded by Highmark and its Allegheny Health network.

Disruptive technologies are those that change long-standing ways of providing medical services, such as having people with diabetes test their own blood using glucose monitors at home instead of submitting to more expensive lab work.

The lab will be led by Dr. Alan Russell, a Highmark-endowed professor at CMU’s Institute for Complex Engineered Systems who advises Highmark on ways science can make health care simpler, more affordable and more accessible.