U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
Credit: Kyle Klein
Precision medicine effort’s national infrastructure advanced through key Massachusetts partners
Leaders with the National Institutes of Health met with Massachusetts policymakers last week at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge to share key highlights of the work of the All of Us Research Program in building its national health research infrastructure.
Staff members from several members of the U.S. congressional delegation from Massachusetts attended the briefing, which was led by NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli, M.D., All of Us CEO Josh Denny, M.D., M.S., Stacey Gabriel, Ph.D., principal investigator of the Broad-LMM-Color All of Us Genome Center, and Todd Golub, M.D., director of the Broad Institute. The event was also attended by several members of the Cambridge City Council, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, and Kendall Square Association. The program’s enrollment and engagement partners in Massachusetts also attended, including principal investigators from Mass General Brigham and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“The program’s rich and diverse dataset is now a vital resource for medical researchers across the NIH, the country, and indeed the world,” Director Bertagnolli said in her remarks at the briefing.
Since the program’s national launch in 2018, 790,000 people have enrolled, including 51,000 volunteers from Massachusetts. Participants are invited to share a wide range of data about themselves to help build one of the most diverse biomedical data resources of its kind.
“All of Us is building an indispensable component for advancing health research. Our partners in Massachusetts and around the country have been integral in this success,” said Denny.
Broad serves as one of the All of Us genome centers, responsible for processing participants’ biosamples so genetic data can be analyzed by researchers. Working with Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Broad also helps coordinate the All of Us Data and Research Center, helping to ensure the data is organized, secure, and safely accessed by registered researchers through the Researcher Workbench.
“We need to understand how disease works for everyone and why some communities are being disproportionately burdened by diseases such as asthma, diabetes, or Alzheimer’s disease. To care for everyone, we need to include everyone,” said Senator Edward Markey in a video shared at the briefing. “The All of Us Research Program’s vision of 1 million participants means we can learn from populations themselves how to treat each and every individual. Population health is systemic, but health care is personal. We can close health care gaps right here in Massachusetts.”
More than 10,000 researchers so far have registered for access to explore the data and make new discoveries. That includes more than 800 researchers from 44 organizations in Massachusetts. Their studies focus on understanding health disparities, mental health conditions, and heart disease. Notable research includes studies on the impact of blindness on mental health and the power of social support for preventing depression.
To learn more about All of Us and how you can get involved, visit AllofUs.nih.gov.
