By: Ashmar Mandou

Top health facilities convened this weekend at Millennium Park as part of the momentous launch of the All of Us Research Program, a program designed to advance individualized prevention, treatment and care for people of all backgrounds. Community members were invited to learn about All of Us through an array engaging activities and speakers as well as register as participants in the program. The Chicago event was one of many simultaneous events occurring around the country to mark the launch the program’s open enrollment. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) kicked off the national enrollment and the Illinois Precision Medicine Consortium, which includes Northwestern Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Chicago, Rush University Medical Center, and NorthShore University HealthSystem hosted the Chicago launch event. The consortium received a five-year, $51 million grant to help launch landmark longitudinal research effort central to the Precision Medicine Initiative from NIH. All of Us gathered lifestyle and medical data from people across the United States to provide the most diverse biomedical data resource in history. The aim of All of Us is to enroll one million or more volunteers and oversample communities that have been underrepresented in research to make the program the largest, most diverse resource of its kind to shed light on how to stay healthy and manage disease in more personalized ways. To learn more or if you are interested in participating in the All of Us Research Program, visit www.JoinAllofUs.org.

Left Picture from left to right: Dr. Robert Winn and Dr. Martha Daviglus, co-principal investigators on All of Us at UIC together with colleague Maria Argos at the All of Us launch event at Millennium Park May 6.