In May 2018 the National Institutes of Health will solicit applications for large-scale Genome Centers to generate genomic data as part of the All of Us Research Program.
The Genome Centers will be funded this summer to generate both genotyping and whole genome sequencing data from biospecimens from the cohort of a million people.
The centers also will operate an analysis workflow resulting in high-confidence calling of all variant types (single nucleotide variants, small insertions/deletions, larger structural variants) and establish a robust pipeline to securely transmit data to the All of Us Data and Research Center.
All of Us is currently in an enrollment beta phase in preparation for launching nationwide later this spring.
It is anticipated that 100,000 persons will consent to participate and provide DNA for analysis by the end of this year, with 1 million or more participants within the next five years.
Primary goals for the genomics platform, anchored by the large-scale Genome Centers, are to:
• develop the capacity and rigor necessary to achieve unprecedented scale of genomic data generation, up to 200,000 genome-wide assays per year;
• generate high-quality genotyping and genome sequence data, with state-of-the-science variant calling, as a crucial data element for the All of Us research resource;
• provide comprehensive variant data to fuel analysis workflows for return of information to the participants in the program;
• contribute to the advancement of technologies and approaches for population-scale genome analysis;
• establish strong collaborative relationships among all investigators in the All of Us genomics platform; and
• contribute to strategic direction of the program as members of All of Us consortium governance.
