United States: All of Us Research Programme
The United States launched the “All of Us Research Programme” in 2018, a key element of its Precision Medicine Initiative.
“Precision medicine” is an approach to aid in the development of personalised care for patients by considering the differences in their genes, lifestyle and environment. It can take many years to understand the contribution of a single unique variable on a given disease or treatment. It will take even longer to devise new treatments and disease prevention methods. Through collecting data from more than one million people in the US, the aim of the All of Us Research Program is to accelerate the understanding of various diseases by analysing the differences in lifestyle, environment and biology of participants, uncovering paths towards delivering precision medicine.
Participants would be required to provide their biological samples, such as blood or urine samples, or allow access to electronic health records, enabling researchers to explore a variety of important health issues including precision medicine approaches in treating cancers and other diseases.
Please click here for more details of the Programme.