PCOM Partners with NIH All of Us Research Program

June 15, 2021

The All of Us program's extensive data platform takes into account people's individual variations in genes, environments and lifestyles.

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PCOM South Georgia has partnered with the National Institutes of Health All of Us Research Program to provide research opportunities for medical students, graduate students and faculty members.

Through the All of Us Research Program, the PCOM community can actively participate in research on many aspects of health. It provides PCOM faculty and students from all three locations with opportunities to participate in ongoing studies and develop their own research projects.

Winston Price, MD, associate professor at PCOM South Georgia said, “This program will bring a unique cohort dataset and expansive tools to the PCOM family of researchers.”

Dr. Price is a member of the All of Us Community and Providers Gateway Initiatives (CPGI) partners and is passionate about bringing more research opportunities to South Georgia.

The program is a part of the NIH Precision Medicine Initiative, an emerging approach for disease prevention and treatment that takes into account people’s individual variations in genes, environment, and lifestyle—a whole person approach that PCOM students and faculty also follow.

Leslie McIntosh, PhD, PCOM South Georgia anatomy professor, co-mentors the SGA Student Research and Journal Club. She leads personal research projects and also works alongside students who are pursuing research.

“I am excited to help share this program with various student research clubs across all three campuses,” she said. “It is a unique opportunity to provide our students with an abundance of data that can be used to investigate questions in community health and wellness.”

The program’s data research portal, housed and managed at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, can be accessed by approved PCOM researchers who complete the required Responsible Conduct of Research Training and acknowledge the Data User Code of Conduct agreement.

PCOM Research Initiatives

The NIH All of Us Research Program will be in alignment with the five-year strategic initiatives of the PCOM research team, initially focusing on five objectives across all campuses:

1. Increase the opportunity to build robust research projects for new and seasoned PCOM researchers.
2. Increase PCOM researchers input to the NIH Precision Medicine solutions to improving health.
3. Encourage the PCOM family to assist in recruitment of All of Us participants from family, friends, people in the surrounding PCOM campus communities and nationwide.
4. Expand opportunities for young researchers to present abstracts, obtain grants and publish articles in peer-reviewed journals.
5. Establish a framework for mentorship of young researchers.

Supported Research

All of Us supports research on many aspects of health, not just a single medical or biological research question. The data platform enables research that can:

• Increase wellness and resilience, and promote healthy living.
• Reduce health disparities and improve health equity in populations that are historically underrepresented in biomedical research (UBR).
• Develop improved risk assessment and prevention strategies to preempt disease.
• Provide earlier and more accurate diagnosis to decrease illness burden.
• Improve health outcomes and reduce disease impact through improved treatment and development of precision interventions.

PCOM South Georgia Research Opportunities

Researchers have the opportunity to:

• Save time and resources and accelerate research breakthroughs by accessing a rich data resource.
• Share workspaces and analyses with research partners and reviewers.
• Learn from the program’s pilots and experiments.
• Leverage innovations of other studies and cohorts.

Students and faculty interested in participating in precision medicine research opportunities using the NIH All of Us program should contact Dr. Winston Price at winstonpr@pcom.edu.

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