First announced in the 2015 State of the Union address, the Precision Medicine Initiative sets out to establish a new model of patient-powered medicine that delivers “the right treatment at the right time to the right person.” Most medical treatments utilize a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Precision medicine recognizes that each patient is different—and suggests that by identifying the complex mechanisms behind those differences we can learn more about the disease and better predict which treatments will be most effective.
Since its inception in 2004, the Broad Institute has been committed to realizing the full promise of precision medicine, and today we are a driving force in President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative. In partnership with Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Verily Life Sciences, the institute will serve as the Data and Research Support Center for the Precision Medicine Initiative. The Data and Research Support Center will acquire, organize, and provide secure access to what will be one of the world’s largest and most diverse datasets for precision medicine research.