US, July 7, 2016 – The National Institutes of Health(NIH) has announced $55 million in awards to build the foundational partnerships and infrastructure needed to launch the Cohort Program of President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI).
The PMI Cohort Program, according to NIH is a landmark longitudinal research effort that aims to engage 1 million or more U.S. participants to improve ability to prevent and treat disease based on individual differences in lifestyle, environment and genetics.
“The awards will support a Data and Research Support Center, Participant Technologies Center and a network of Healthcare Provider Organizations (HPO)”, the NIH said adding that an award to Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, to build the biobank, another essential component, was announced earlier this year.
It explained that all awards are for five years, pending progress reviews and availability of funds.
“With these awards, NIH is on course to begin initial enrollment into the PMI Cohort Program in 2016, with the aim of meeting its enrollment goal by 2020”, the NIH said.
Speaking on the award, Director, NIH, Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. said the more “we understand about individual differences, the better able we will be to effectively prevent and treat illness”,.
The PMI Cohort Program is one of the most ambitious research projects in history and will set the foundation for new ways of engaging people in research.
“PMI volunteers will be asked to contribute a wide range of health, environment and lifestyle information. They will also be invited to answer questions about their health history and status, share their genomic and other biological information through simple blood and urine tests and grant access to their clinical data from electronic health records.
“In addition, mobile health devices and apps will provide lifestyle data and environmental exposures in real time. All of this will be accomplished with essential privacy and security safeguards. As partners in the research, participants will have ongoing input into study design and implementation, as well as access to a wide range of their individual and aggregated study results”, the NIH added.
