UF will join the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us research program, a project that aims to collect data from 1 million Americans who are underrepresented in medical research.
“It fits with our research mission in terms of understanding what influences human health and human health outcomes, so we like to be at the forefront,” said William Hogan, the director of biomedical informatics at the UF Clinical and Translational Science Institute. “We have joined a very elite group of institutions around the country by being part of this initiative.”
The goal of the All of Us research program is to progress precision medicine, to use genetic information to more efficiently treat individual patients, Hogan said.
UF Health works with the program’s SouthEast Enrollment Center. The center, which combines multiple universities and groups, has collectively received $4.45 million from All of Us to recruit participants and collect data.
The SouthEast Enrollment Center will reach under-researched populations, including African-Americans from the Deep South and Cuban-Americans from Miami. Selected researchers are close to these communities, giving them better access, Hogan said.
UF will play a large role in recruiting rural communities in northern Florida, Hogan said.
UF Health will collect participants’ electronic information and send it to the program’s coordinating center at Vanderbilt University, Hogan said.
Hogan said the SouthEast Enrollment Center has an enrollment goal of 8,000 participants for its first phase. Enrollments will most likely begin around January 2018.
Benjamin Judkins, a 23-year-old UF medical second-year student, said precision medicine has been a big focus in medical school.
“In a perfect world, it would be great to tailor everyone’s treatment to their own personal genetics, and hopefully we will get there,” Judkins said.
