In late September, Morehouse School of Medicine joined a $46 million grant-funded collaboration that offers the Atlanta-based institution, alongside three other historically Black medical schools, the opportunity to expand genomic research efforts in order to find new ways to study and prevent disease.
The collaboration is funded by the Chan Zuckerburg Initiative and is estimated to bring in $11.5 million directly to MSM in the coming years.
On this edition of “Closer Look,” Dr. Ivory Dean, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s science program manager, and Dr. Rick Kittles, senior vice president of research at MSM, discussed the new partnership and the overall goal of working to advance precision medicine in Black communities and other people of color.
“It’s taking all of the available information, in particular genomic information, and then making a clinical decision based on that information,” said Kittles. “We do find that communities of color, for several reasons, are not necessarily benefiting from the current precision medicine products. That’s because the lack of data in the data basis, the costs … and also just not the knowledge base.”
“What we are wanting to do is accelerate genetic research and closing this gap … historically a lot of Black medical colleges and universities do not receive as many federal dollars for research,” Dean said. “It’s very important to bring that type of support.”
