The National Institutes of Health is giving the University of Arizona more than $40 million to help identify new ways to treat and prevent disease, UA officials announced Wednesday.
"This is huge for Arizona. Only four academic medical centers across the country were chosen," said Elizabeth Calhoun, one of the grant's principal investigators and executive director of the Center for Population Science and Discovery at the UA's Arizona Health Sciences Center.
"Arizona will now have the ability to partake in the next generation of science in a way that they have never had an ability to do."
The university says the $43.3 million award over five years is part of the Precision Medicine Initiative that President Obama introduced in his 2015 State of the Union Address. The White House describes the initiative as, "a bold new research effort to revolutionize how we improve health and treat disease."
"I want the country that eliminated polio and mapped the human genome to lead a new era of medicine — one that delivers the right treatment at the right time," Obama said in his address last year.
The initiative calls for finding a million or more Americans who volunteer to participate in research. The UA will be part of a team of research institutions building that national research cohort, NIH officials announced Wednesday.
In addition to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, he NIH announced four health provider organizations in the team so far: Columbia University Health Sciences, New York City; Northwestern University, Chicago; the University of Pittsburgh at Pittsburgh; and the UA.
Arizona has not been a part of national research initiatives at all," Calhoun said. "It's a fabulous tribute, a super big deal."
The other local principal investigator is Dr. Akinlolu O. Ojo, who is the associate vice president for clinical research and global health initiatives at the UA's Health Sciences Center.
More institutions may be added as the project moves forward, federal officials say.
"This range of information at the scale of one million people from all walks of life will be an unprecedented resource for researchers working to understand all of the factors that influence health and disease,” NIH Director Dr. Francis S. Collins said in a prepared statement.
"Over time, data provided by participants will help us answer important health questions, such as why some people with elevated genetic and environmental risk factors for disease still manage to maintain good health, and how people suffering from a chronic illness can maintain the highest possible quality of life.
"The more we understand about individual differences, the better able we will be to effectively prevent and treat illness."
The awardees have sub-awards with organizations that extend the geographic reach of the network, according to the NIH. The UA's sub-awardee is Banner Health in Phoenix, which has an affiliation with the UA and since a merger last year has owned Tucson's two academic medical centers — Banner University Medical Center — Tucson and Banner University Medical Center — South.
The official name of the local program will be the UA Health Sciences – Banner Health PMI Cohort Program.
In an op-ed in the Boston Globe on Wednesday, Obama further described the initiative:
"The powerful and exciting field of precision medicine goes a step further and asks: What if we could just as easily match a cancer cure to a patient’s unique genetic code? Instead of trying a one-size-fits-all treatment, what if medical experts could tailor one specifically for everyone’s body?," he wrote.
"By bringing together doctors and data like never before, precision medicine aims to deliver the right treatments in the right dosage at the right time — every time."
Obama designated $215 million in the 2016 fiscal year to support the initiative, including $130 million allocated to the NIH to build the national, large-scale research participant cohort.
According to a White House description of the cohort program, participants will have the opportunity to contribute diverse sources of data including medical records, profiles of the patient’s genes, chemical makeup, microorganisms in and on the body; environmental and lifestyle data; patient-generated information; and personal device and sensor data.
"This ambitious project will leverage existing research and clinical networks and build on innovative research models that enable patients to be active participants and partners," the White House says.
"The cohort will be broadly accessible to qualified researchers and will have the potential to inspire scientists from multiple disciplines to join the effort and apply their creative thinking to generate new insights."
The overall aim is to advance understanding of health and disease and to, "set the foundation for a new way of doing research through engaged participants and open, responsible data sharing," the fact sheet says.
Another $70 million was allocated to the National Cancer Institute to lead efforts in cancer genomics. The remaining $15 million was allocated to the Food and Drug Administration ($10 million) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology ($5 million).
