(MENAFN - Al-Anbaa) The United States has proposed analyzing genetic information from more than 1 million American volunteers as part of a new initiative to understand human disease and develop medicines targeted to an individual's genetic make-up. At the heart of the \"precision medicine\" initiative, announced on Friday by President Barack Obama, is the creation of a pool of people - healthy and ill, men and women, old and young - who would be studied to learn how genetic variants affect health and disease. <\/p>\n
Officials hope genetic data from several hundred thousand participants in ongoing genetic studies would be used and other volunteers recruited to reach the 1 million total. <\/p>\n
\"Precision medicine gives us one of the greatest opportunities for new medical breakthroughs we've ever seen,\" Obama said, promising that it would \"lay a foundation for a new era of life-saving discoveries.\" <\/p>\n
The near-term goal is to create more and better treatments for cancer, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), told reporters on a conference call on Thursday. Longer term, he said, the project would provide information on how to individualize treatment for a range of diseases. <\/p>\n
The initial focus on cancer, he said, reflects the lethality of the disease and the significant advances against cancer that precision medicine has already made, though more work is needed. <\/p>\n
The effort may raise alarm bells for privacy rights advocates who have questioned the government's ability to guarantee that DNA information is kept anonymous. <\/p>\n
Obama promised that \"privacy will be built in from day one.\" <\/p>\n
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U.S. to analyze DNA from 1 million people<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (MENAFN - Al-Anbaa) The United States has proposed analyzing genetic information from more than 1 million American volunteers as part of a new initiative to understand human disease and develop medicines targeted to an individual's genetic make-up. At the heart of the \"precision medicine\" initiative, announced on Friday by President Barack Obama, is the creation of a pool of people - healthy and ill, men and women, old and young - who would be studied to learn how genetic variants affect health and disease Continue reading