‘All of Us’ research project diversifies the storehouse of genetic knowledge
By Rob Stein,
NPR
| 03. 07. 2024
A big federal research project aimed at reducing racial disparities in genetic research has unveiled the program's first major trove of results.
"This is a huge deal," says Dr. Joshua Denny, who runs the All of Us program at the National Institutes of Health. "The sheer quantify of genetic data in a really diverse population for the first time creates a powerful foundation for researchers to make discoveries that will be relevant to everyone."
The goal of the $3.1 billion program is to solve a long-standing problem in genetic research: Most of the people who donate their DNA to help find better genetic tests and precision drugs are whit
"Most research has not been representative of our country or the world," Denny says. "Most research has focused on people of European genetic ancestry or would be self-identified as white. And that means there's a real inequity in past research."
For example, researchers "don't understand how drugs work well in certain populations. We don't understand the causes of disease for many people," Denny says. "Our project is to really correct...
Related Articles
By Jonathan D. Grinstein, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News | 06.26.2024
Partial screenshot from The Bridge Recombination Mechanism
video by The Arc Institute on YouTube (CC)
Buried in a family of mobile genetic elements, Arc Institute researchers led by Patrick Hsu, PhD, have discovered an RNA-guided system that enables modular...
By Carl Zimmer, The New York Times | 05.31.2024
Last year, Jaume Pellicer led a team of fellow scientists into a forest on Grande Terre, an island east of Australia. They were in search of a fern called Tmesipteris oblanceolata. Standing just a few inches tall, it was not...
By Liz Szabo, The New York Times | 05.29.2024
By the time Rena Barrow-Wells gave birth to her fourth baby in 2020, she was well-versed in caring for a child with cystic fibrosis. She was also experienced in fighting for a diagnosis of the disease, which runs in families...
By Alison Snyder, Axios | 06.06.2024
Gene editing's next chapter will be focused on tackling cancers and more common diseases, uncovering new details about aging and other fundamental aspects of biology and editing RNA, top scientists in the field said this week.
The big picture: ...