The National Institutes of Health awarded $4.6 million to Burlingame, Calif.-based Color to provide genetic counseling and technological infrastructure as the All of Us research program begins to provide participants with individualized genetic analysis.
The grant is the first installment of a total of $25 million allotted to Color by the NIH over the next several years. Using the funding, Color's network of genetic counselors will help consenting participants in the precision health research program fully understand what their genomic testing results mean for their own health and for that of their families.
Information provided to participants will encompass ancestry, drug-gene interactions and disease risk. Color will discuss these results in both clinical settings and via telecounseling, and can connect patients with providers best suited to their genetic needs. The first All of Us cohort will begin to receive their genetic analyses and counseling by the end of this year or the beginning of 2020, program director Eric Dishman told STAT.
Providing genomic analysis to participants in return for sharing their health data with the study is a core tenet of the All of Us program, which aims to sequence the genomes of 1 million Americans to gain a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of human health. The resulting health research resource, expected to be the largest in the world, will be used to develop precision treatments.
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