Pew Funds Genetics and Public Policy Center's New Consumer Genetics Project
The Pew Charitable Trust has awarded $750,000 to the Genetics and Public Policy Center for a new project focused on consumer protections for applications of genetic testing.
Video Summary
Participants viewed a video about the proposed study. The video illustrated that:
- People possess different variations of the same genes, and these variations can have different effects depending on an individual’s environment, lifestyle, and other genes. In order to be representative of the U.S. population and to detect weak genetic and environmental influences on health, the proposed study would include a large number of people.
- The project would collect genetic samples and data from up to 500,000 U.S. residents. At a local health clinic, the volunteers would give blood samples and information about their medical histories, diets, lifestyles, and environmental exposures.
- Volunteers would be contacted for updates on their health periodically for up to 10 years.
- NIH would analyze the blood samples. Researchers from inside and outside the agency could apply to use volunteers’ information to study how genes, environment, and lifestyle contribute to disease. Volunteers’ information would be coded to hide their identities from researchers.
- Researchers’ findings would become part of the NIH databank, contributing to our understanding of many common diseases.
- Other countries have launched similar projects.
Schematic: The proposed study (from video)
Read Full Section: The Process (PDF)
