All of Us Accelerates Discovery for Chronic Disease Solutions
What does it take to revolutionize how we understand and treat chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease? In a recent Research!America Alliance discussion, NIH leaders shared how NIH’s All of Us Research Program is accelerating progress by capturing the full picture of health: genetics, environment, nutrition, lifestyle and more.
“We think about chronic disease as composites of genetic influence, environmental exposures and lifestyle habits,” said Dr. Josh Denny, CEO of the All of Us Research Program. “We’re able to look at that intersectionality,” thanks to one of the most data-rich research platforms ever built.
Dr. Holly Nicastro, nutrition scientist and coordinator of the Nutrition for Precision Health study, highlighted the program’s value as a national research infrastructure:
“We estimate, conservatively, that our study is saving on the order of tens of millions of dollars by embedding within the All of Us Research Program,” she said.
Dr. Rick Woychik, director of NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, emphasized that understanding where people live and work is just as critical as understanding their biology.
“My physician has never asked me where I work or live, and what we’re discovering is that where you live and work actually can predict what some of your environmental exposures are,” Woychik said.
Together, these insights are helping to reshape the way we think about chronic disease. To watch the full discussion and learn more about how All of Us is transforming chronic disease research, see: https://bit.ly/3GS3mna.