President Obama asked Congress Friday to fund a new personalized medicine venture he’ll propose in his upcoming budget request, saying it’s one area where both parties could work together.
The capstone of the $215 million initiative would be creating a research group of one million volunteers, giving scientists a massive pool of data to analyze individuals’ genomes and how they compare to each other.
“If we have a big pool of people that’s varied, that will really allow us to map out not only the genome of one person but now we can start seeing connections and correlations that will help us refine what we’re trying to do when it comes to treatment,” Obama said at the White House.
Major aims of the project would be finding the genetic mutations that lead to cancer and developing ways to evaluate cutting-edge genetic tests, the president said. The National Institutes of Health would take the lead on creating the research pool, while smaller amounts of funding would be funneled to the National Cancer Institute, the FDA and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
Medical professionals see personalized medicine — or, precision medicine — as the next way to target diseases like cancer or cystic fibrosis by identifying their underlying genetic cause and then treating patients based on that information.
“That’s the promise of precision medicine, delivering the right treatment at the right time to the right person,” Obama said.
Some major medical centers are already working on genetic sequencing towards the aim of improving clinical outcomes for patients, including the Kaiser Permanente system and Mayo Clinic. Last year, Geisinger Health System launched a partnership with a drug company to sequence the DNA of 100,000 patients.
Administration officials said through the initiative they would seek to partner with private groups, both through research grants and by assembling a panel of top medical experts to guide the program.
Members of Congress, including Reps. Fred Upton , R-Mich., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., have recently drawn attention to the prospect of new, advanced cures with a series of hearings last year and some recent policy proposals.
