Precision Medicine Initiative

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15 Blockchain Whitepapers Awarded Winners of US Department of Health and Human Services Challenge

Luke Parker | Brave New Coin | August 30, 2016

A challenge held by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)  to encourage Blockchain use in the Health Information Technology field resulted in 15 winning whitepapers. The Department’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) first announced the “Use of Blockchain in Health IT and Health-Related Research” challenge in July...

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Biden Announces Major Open Initiatives At Cancer Moonshot Summit

Press Release | The White House | June 28, 2016

Today, the Cancer Moonshot is hosting a summit at Howard University, in Washington, D.C. as part of a national day of action that also includes more than 270 events in communities across the United States.  Vice President Joe Biden will join over 350 researchers, oncologists and other care providers, data and technology experts, patients, families, and patient advocates, among others, will come together at Howard University.  They will be joined by more than 6,000 individuals at events in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam.  This is the first time a group this expansive and diverse will meet under a government charge is to double the rate of progress in our understanding, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care of cancer...

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Cardiologist Eric Topol on Why We Need to Map the Human Body and “Go Deep” with Big Data

Press Release | Stanford Medicine | May 25, 2017

This year’s Big Data in Biomedicine conference included a passionate talk from cardiologist Eric Topol, MD, of The Scripps Research Institute. Topol, who has been named one of the most influential physician leaders in the United States, described in gripping detail what’s wrong with medical care today and why we need to move forward to the kind of individualized medicine that can make for healthier individuals and healthier populations...

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DNAnexus to Deliver precisionFDA

Press Release | DNAnexus | August 5, 2015

DNAnexus, the leader in cloud-based genome informatics and data management, today announced that the company was awarded a research and development contract by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Health Informatics to build precisionFDA, an open source platform for community sharing of genomic information. precisionFDA is a new approach for evaluating bioinformatics workflows, and is an integral part of the agency’s work in understanding diagnostic tests that incorporate next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies. FDA’s role under the White House’s Precision Medicine Initiative is to review the current regulatory landscape and develop a streamlined approach to evaluating NGS-based diagnostics.

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EMSI to Support Sample Collection for the National Institutes of Health's All of Us Research Program

Press Release | EMSI | April 5, 2017

EMSI, a medical information service provider mobilizing networks of technology-enabled health professionals and trained phlebotomists, will engage thousands of direct volunteers in their homes for the ambitious All of Us Research Program, a historic medical research effort led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)...Precision medicine is an approach to disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in environment, lifestyle and genes. The All of Us Research Program, which is part of the Precision Medicine Initiative, will lay the foundation for using this approach in clinical practice...

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FDA Starts Beta-testing 'The Most Advanced Bioinformatics Platform in the World'

Nick Paul Taylor | FierceBiotechIT | November 16, 2015

The FDA has started testing the precisionFDA platform it developed with DNAnexus. The closed beta test phase is the precursor to a more widespread rollout of the system, which the CEO of DNAnexus has described as being "the most advanced bioinformatics platform in the world." DNAnexus was enlisted by the FDA to help with the project in August...

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FDA to Advance Precision Medicine by Enabling Open Source Collaborative Informatics

FDA plays an integral role in President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative, which foresees the day when an individual’s medical care will be tailored in part based on their unique characteristics and genetic make-up. Yet while more than 80 million genetic variants have been found in the human genome, we don’t understand the role that most of these variants play in health or disease. Achieving the President’s vision requires working collaboratively to ensure the accuracy of genetic tests in detecting and interpreting genetic variants. We are working towards that goal by developing an informatics community and supporting platform we call precisionFDA.

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Halamka's Report on the August 2015 HIT Standards Committee

The August 2015 HIT Standards Committee marked the beginning of an important transition. As work on Meaningful Use winds down, it is being replaced with work on Obama’s signature precision medicine initiative and planning for the 2016 Interoperability Standards Advisory. At the same time, many of the longstanding HIT Standards Committee members of have reached their term limits and are being replaced by new experts.   I will leave the group in January.

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HHS Proposes Path To Improve Health Technology And Transform Care

Press Release | U.S. Department of Health and Human Services | January 30, 2015

ONC issues draft nationwide health IT Interoperability Roadmap; Implementation resources also released as first deliverable...

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Hortonworks Initiates Precision Medicine Consortium to Explore Next Generation Genomics Open Source Platform

Press Release | Hortonworks, Inc. | June 28, 2016

Hortonworks, Inc., a leading innovator of open and connected data platforms, today announced the formation of a new consortium to define and develop an open source genomics platform to accelerate genomics-based precision medicine in research and clinical care. Other founding members include Arizona State University, Baylor College of Medicine, Booz Allen Hamilton, Mayo Clinic, OneOme and Yale New Haven Health...

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Hortonworks Supports the Precision Medicine Initiative

Press Release | Hortonworks | February 25, 2016

Hortonworks, Inc. today announced its commitment to the White House's Precision Medicine Initiative, a bold new research effort to revolutionize how the United States improves health and treats disease. Hortonworks has committed to providing its expertise in utilizing open data platforms and building open communities to researchers and research organizations, assisting them in using big data to address the challenges and opportunities of precision medicine. "We are thrilled to put our expertise and technology to work to support the Precision Medicine Initiative," said Rob Bearden, chief executive officer, Hortonworks. "Our open data platforms and technology can help researchers better understand the root causes of patient health issues and better predict which treatments will be most effective."...

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Inside the Drive to Collect DNA from 1M Veterans and Revolutionize Medicine

Jeffrey Delviscio, Alex Hogan, Hyacinth Empinado and Alissa Ambrose | Fox News | September 15, 2016

The Department of Veterans Affairs is gathering blood from 1 million veterans and sequencing their DNA. At the same time, computer scientists are creating a database that combines those genetic sequences with electronic medical records and other information about veterans’ health. The ultimate goal of the project, known as the Million Veteran Program, is to uncover clues about disorders ranging from diabetes to post-traumatic stress disorder...

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LymeDisease.org Invited to Attend White House for Precision Medicine Summit

Press Release | LymeDisease.org | February 24, 2016

LymeDisease.org, the leading research advocacy organization for Lyme disease, announced today that Lorraine Johnson, chief executive officer, has been invited by the White House to participate in the upcoming Precision Medicine Initiative Summit on Thursday, February 25, in Washington, DC. Johnson, whose organization recently launched MyLymeData, the first patient-powered research project for chronic Lyme disease, will join government officials, academia, researchers, and other patient advocacy groups to discuss new and emerging approaches being taken to advance precision medicine and improve patient care...

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Montefiore And Einstein Are Tapped By The White House For Precision Medicine Initiative

Press Release | Montefiore Health System , Albert Einstein College of Medicine | February 25, 2016

Montefiore Health System and Albert Einstein College of Medicine have been selected to be part of the White House's inaugural Precision Medicine Initiative Summit. Parsa Mirhaji, M.D., Ph.D., director of Clinical Research Informatics at Montefiore and Einstein is among an elite group of healthcare leaders from across the country who will participate in a roundtable today at the White House. The event will focus on efforts to integrate biological, clinical, environmental, and administrative data to advance innovations in research and improve the delivery of healthcare...

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More Research Volunteers Are Getting Their Medical Test Results. Should We Cheer — or Worry?

Kat McGowan | STAT | December 1, 2016

Volunteer for a clinical trial and your body will be poked, prodded, scanned, and analyzed. But you’re unlikely to get any of the results. A small but influential band of activists has been pushing hard to change that — and they’re starting to get traction. The research establishment has long opposed giving volunteers access to their data, even though that’s supposed to be part of the arrangement. Some worry that it’s too easy for laypeople to misinterpret test results, while others maintain that it’s a waste of resources to organize data for individual review...

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