The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently awarded inaugural funding to the genetic testing firm Color, in partnership with the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, and the Laboratory for Molecular Medicine at Partners HealthCare, to establish one of three genome centers around the country for Color’s All of Us Research Program.
The All of Us Research Program is a biomedical research effort that will sequence one million or more people across the United States with the goal of accelerating health research and enabling individualized prevention, treatment, and care. By focusing on recruitment from populations that have been historically underrepresented in clinical science and genomic medicine, the program will build a diverse biomedical data resource providing a foundation for better insights into the biologic, environmental, and behavioral factors that influence health.
Role of Color
Color will be responsible for analyzing and reporting genomic data, with support from Partners HealthCare at the Laboratory for Molecular Medicine, for a set of 59 genes that can cause various clinical conditions such as breast and ovarian cancers, familial hypercholesterolemia, Lynch syndrome, and others. Color will also provide pharmacogenomic results, which offer useful information about how the body processes and responds to medications. These analyses will be based on clinical-grade genomic data generated at the Broad Institute.
“Since our founding, we have believed population genomics is the key to moving toward a data-driven and prevention-oriented model of care. All of Us is a tremendous opportunity to unlock the benefits of genetic information to better understand disease and help people live healthier lives,” said Color Chief Executive Officer, Othman Laraki. ■
