The All of Us Research Program has recently issued a funding opportunity for a Genetic Counseling Resource to support the responsible return of genomic results to participants. With plans to sequence the genomes of one million participants, All of Us is poised to make a significant investment in research on how to deliver genetic counseling at scale.
Genomic data can include important health information, such as how a person might respond to a medicine or whether they are at heightened risk for a specific disease. Genetic counseling will be an important component in the All of Us Research Program’s overall genomic efforts to be responsive to participants’ potential questions and concerns.
This funding opportunity affirms the program’s commitments to partner with participants and provide access to information collected as part of their participation. It follows an earlier announcement this September about the establishment of three All of Us Genome Centers across the country, which will generate genotype and whole genome sequence data from participants’ biosamples.
The Genetic Counseling Resource awardee(s) will be responsible for a variety of activities, including:
- establishing a network of genetic counseling professionals for the All of Us Research Program
- delivering clinical reports to participants interested in receiving them about important medically-actionable genetic findings
- providing computer- and phone-based genetic counseling services for participants and their health care providers
- helping advance technologies and approaches for population-scale genomic education and counseling for precision medicine delivery
The program anticipates funding up to two Genetic Counseling Resource awards this fiscal year, with an anticipated five-year project period. Applicants may request up to $2 million in direct costs for the first year. Future funding will be adjusted annually, based on volume of services, programmatic requirements, and availability of funds.
Applicants will be evaluated on their teams’ experience, technical approach, plans and capabilities to scale up operations, and cost proposal. The program will favor applicants with expertise in offering genetic counseling services across multiple U.S. states and to people from diverse and disadvantaged communities.
Applications are due on February 1, 2019, by 5:00 p.m. local time.
For full details, please see the funding opportunity.
Interested parties are also encouraged to attend the program's forthcoming webinar for more information:
December 10, 2018, 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m. EST
Please RSVP, or send any inquiries to, PMICPFOAInquiries@mail.nih.gov.
