USA —The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) has partnered with the US’s four historically Black medical colleges (HBMCs) for genomics research, new methods of disease treatment and prevention, and improving precision health, particularly for people of color.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was founded in 2015 to help solve some of society’s toughest challenges — from eradicating disease and improving education, to addressing the needs of our communities.
The four schools are Charles Drew University College of Medicine; Howard University College of Medicine; Meharry Medical College; and Morehouse School of Medicine.
The Accelerate Precision Health program – led by Dr. Ivory Dean, CZI science program manager, and Dr. Hannah Valantine, CZI senior science adviser – will invest in genomics programs at the four schools.
Each medical school will be rewarded with US$46 million in grants or US$11.5 million per institution for investments in genomics programs over the next five years.
Precision health, unlike one-size-fits-all approaches, accounts for genes, environments, and lifestyles when formulating treatment and prevention strategies.
According to the Precision Medicine Market Report 2022-2023, the increase in scope of application of precision medicine is expected to propel market growth as the leading precision medicine disease focus, oncology, is joined by immunology, central nervous system (CNS), respiratory and other diseases.
“It’s important to underscore that for Black Americans, there is a large gap between representation and need in genomics research, and the time is now to support the intersection of genomics and health differences research that will advance science. Research shows that expanding representation leads to innovative discoveries,” Valantine said.
Actively engaging HBMCs and the communities they serve in genomics research is a necessary approach to harness new perspectives that will fuel creative interdisciplinary research, unleash innovations that have yet to be conceived, and accelerate precision health equity, Valantine noted.
The HBMCs will expand research for students; support creation of master’s programs in genetic counseling; support recruitment of genomics faculty; and fund tools for data handling, storage, and analysis.
This grant is part of a multi-year, US$500 million investment CZI announced in December 2020 to support organizations leading the way to advance racial equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts.
Additional CZI funds also support Black, Latina/o/x, and Indigenous students who are pursuing STEM degrees at the University of California, San Diego, and UC Berkeley, as the two campuses implement aspects of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s successful Meyerhoff Scholars Program.
In January 2022, CZI launched the Science Diversity Leadership program in partnership with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that aims to recognize and further the leadership and scientific accomplishments of excellent biomedical researchers who — through their outreach, mentoring, and teaching — have a record of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in their scientific fields.
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