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A research program at the National Institutes of Health released the world’s largest database of human genomes and paired them with clinical data, officials announced Tuesday, paving the way for a new era of study in personalized medicine.
The All of Us program, which started in 2018, recruits participants from diverse backgrounds and combines their genetic information with real-world data from health records, wearable technology like Fitbits and other sources to help scientists investigate potential causes of and treatments for disease.
As of Tuesday, more than 747,000 people across the United States had contributed data, including 535,000 whole genomes linked to 482,000 electronic health records comprising doctor’s notes, diagnoses and testing results. The database also bundles the genetic information with health surveys about socioeconomic factors and location-based exposure data, such as air quality.
By comparison, the UK Biobank — which started in the early 2000s and is widely considered the leading genomic repository — contains genomes and electronic health records for about 500,000 participants, but it is almost entirely composed of people with white European ancestry, limiting the clinical implications...