NIH Leaders, Massachusetts Policymakers Meet at the Broad Institute

NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli (second from l) joined Drs. Josh Denny (c) and Karriem Watson (r) at a meeting with Massachusetts policymakers, including Dr. Todd Golub (l), director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Dr. Beth Karlson, co-principal investigator with the All of Us New England consortium.

Photo:  KYLE KLEIN

NIH leaders met recently with Massachusetts policymakers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge. They shared highlights of the work of the All of Us Research Program in building its national health research infrastructure.

Staff from the U.S. congressional delegation representing Massachusetts also attended the briefing, which was led by NIH Director Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, All of Us CEO Dr. Josh Denny, Dr. Stacey Gabriel, principal investigator of the Broad-LMM-Color All of Us Genome Center, and Dr. Todd Golub, director of the Broad Institute. Also at the meeting were several members of the Cambridge City Council, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center and Kendall Square Association. 

The program’s enrollment and engagement partners in Massachusetts also attended, including principal investigators from Mass General Brigham and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Bertagnolli discusses All of Us progress.

Photo:  KYLE KLEIN

“The program’s rich and diverse dataset is now a vital resource for medical researchers across NIH, the country and indeed the world,” said Bertagnolli.

Since the program’s national launch in 2018, 790,000 people have enrolled, including 51,000 volunteers from Massachusetts. Participants are invited to share a wide range of data about themselves to help build one of the most diverse biomedical data resources of its kind.

“All of Us is building an indispensable component for advancing health research,” said Denny. “Our partners in Massachusetts and around the country have been integral in this success.” 

Broad serves as one of the All of Us genome centers, responsible for processing participants’ biosamples so genetic data can be analyzed by researchers. 

Working with Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Broad also helps coordinate the All of Us Data and Research Center, working to ensure the data is organized, secure and safely accessed by registered scientists through the Researcher Workbench.

More than 10,000 investigators so far have registered for access to explore the data and make new discoveries. That includes more than 800 researchers from 44 organizations in Massachusetts.