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NIH awards $2.3 million to NorthShore for five-year study

EVANSTON - NorthShore University HealthSystem will be awarded $2.3 million from the National Institutes of Health as part of the Illinois Precision Medicine Consortium, a component of the White House's Precision Medicine Initiative.

The funds will allow NorthShore to enroll 9,000 patients into the nationwide genomic research initiative. The IPMC is part of a wider $55 million federal set of awards under the PMI in support of reaching the goal of enrolling 1 million people to improve our ability to prevent and treat disease based on individual lifestyle, environment and genetics.

"Participation in the federal PMI will strengthen the wide array of genomic medicine programs NorthShore already has in place," said Pablo Gejman, M.D., principal investigator of the NorthShore IPMC site and member of the IPMC's Steering Committee and Emerging Scientific Opportunities Committee.

Dr. Gejman also directs the NorthShore Genomic Health Initiative that launched in 2014 and is designed to investigate genetic variations contributing to both rare and common diseases. Diabetes, cancer, stroke, and heart disease - all of which are shaped by various genetic and environmental factors - are a few examples of such common diseases. NorthShore's GHI has enrolled more than 12,000 participants in two years.

"This is a major step forward, widening the scope of research at a national level and providing an opportunity to not only study DNA, but also variation biomarkers that will allow researchers a look at markers for disease state," said Dr. Gejman.

NorthShore's involvement in the IPMC is one part of NorthShore's broader personalized medicine initiative and is one of the most comprehensive programs in the country. The program is focused on analyzing an individual's health history and unique genomic characteristics to better predict, prevent or diagnose a number of diseases and develop tailored therapies.

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