The Scripps Translational Science Institute has been awarded a five-year, $120 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to play a major role in an ambitious national study.
It's part of President Barack Obama's Precision Medicine Institute.
The goal of the new study is to gather the medical history and genomic information of 1 million Americans, and monitor their health in real time with smart phones, mobile apps and sensors.
Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, said the research project will break new ground.
"This is the most transformative, far-reaching, ambitious research endeavor in the history of the United States," Topol said. "There’s never been a medical research program at this scale.”
Scripps will be responsible for enrolling 350,000 people.
Topol said people involved in the study will be asked to be active participants and will have full access to all of their health data.
“And that could be what makes them tick, through sensors. It could be about their environmental exposures. It could be about their genome or their micro-biome. But the main thing is, they wouldn’t have this data just a few years ago," he said.
Other research partners in the study include the Mayo Clinic, University of Arizona and the Veterans Health Administration.
