The National Institutes of Health has named Verily — formerly Google Life Sciences — advisor to Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University as it prepares to launch a pilot program to support the precision medicine initiative President Barack Obama outlined in 2015, according to Reuters.
Vanderbilt's pilot program aims to enroll 79,000 volunteers by the end of this year. These volunteers will submit personal data that will eventually be used to create treatments to diseases, according to NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD. The "cohort program" will expand to more than one million or more U.S. volunteers over time, covering a wide spectrum of participants from diverse age, economic and racial groups, Dr. Collins said.
The initiative will track individual characteristics, as opposed to a "medicine based on a one size fits all" approach, said Dr. Collins, according to the report. It will look at the role of environmental exposures and their impact on genetic predispositions in addition to genetic factors.
The NIH said more than 40 companies have made commitments to the project so far, including nonprofits, universities, EHR vendors, technology companies, patient advocates and others.
The agency is working with the Health Resources and Services Administration to partner with community health centers to find under-served individuals, families and communities to participate in the program.
The Vanderbilt/Verily coordinating center will manage the project, including the collection of data from a network of healthcare provider organizations, a "biobank" to store and manage biological specimens provided by participants and a participant technologies center, according to the report.