The centerpiece of President Obamas new precision medicine initiative would be a massive database containing the genetic profiles, medical histories and other data of a million or more willing Americans.

The effort, which federal officials said would partly include pooling volunteers from existing studies into a single project, is aimed at helping doctors and researchers better understand the complicated mechanisms underlying any number of illnesses.

This research will dramatically advance our knowledge of diseases, how they originated and how we may prevent or treat them, said Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.

Obama plans to outline the idea Friday morning at the White House in front of academics, researchers and drug-industry officials. It is part of a broader initiative to bolster precision medicine, which tries to tailor treatments and preventive measures based on individuals makeup.

It holds the potential to revolutionize the way we approach health in this country and, ultimately, around the world, Jo Handelsman, associate director for science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told reporters before Fridays announcement. Precision medicine is about moving beyond [the] one-size-fits-all approach to medicine and, instead, taking into account peoples genes, their microbiomes, their environments and their lifestyles.

President Obama told a gathering of Democratic lawmakers that he welcomed Republicans who are talking about addressing income inequality and poverty.

As part of that push, the president plans to ask Congress for a $215 million investment when he unveils his annual budget request next week.

About $130 million of that would go to the NIH to develop the national database, which would protect patients identities but allow researchers to share reams of genetic data. The Food and Drug Administration and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology would receive $10 million and $5 million, respectively, to evaluate and fast-track new innovations and build the technological infrastructure to share data securely. Another $70 million would go to the National Cancer Institute to scale up research into more and better treatments for specific types of cancer.

Proponents of the approach often point to advances in the cancer field as an example of the promise of precision, or personalized, medicine. In recent years, the FDA has approved numerous drugs that can target specific types of the disease effectively.

The push toward more targeted therapies in recent years also has led to breakthroughs for other diseases, including hepatitis C and cystic fibrosis. Kalydeco, approved by the FDA in 2012, targets the underlying genetic cause of cystic fibrosis for a small subset of patients with a specific mutation.

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Obama seeks $215 million for personalized medicine effort