All of Us Research Program UArizona-Banner Announces Seed Project Awardees

The All of Us Research Program University of Arizona-Banner Health is announcing a portfolio of seed project awards that will utilize the program’s expansive dataset to conduct health research. The goal of this All of Us UArizona-Banner research project request was to inform the development of alternative precision health strategies and fuel medical discoveries.

The All of Us database represents a unique opportunity for researchers, as it reflects the rich diversity of the United States. More than 80% of the data comes from communities that are traditionally underrepresented in biomedical research, 50% of which are underrepresented racial and ethnic communities. 

"The depth of genomic data in these diverse participants, coupled with electronic health records and social determinants of health data, enables researchers to launch a wide variety of new studies in the All of Us Researcher Workbench,” said Jason Karnes, PharmD, PhD, director of scientific programs for All of Us UArizona-Banner and associate professor of pharmacy practice and science in the UArizona R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy.

The following seed project awardees contribute to a growing and diverse community of investigators conducting scholarly inquiries using the All of Us Research Program dataset:

• “Comparing health care access and utilization among underrepresented groups in urban and rural communities of Colorado: Initial results from the All of Us Research Program” – Principal Investigator: Michael Bradfield, MD, MPH, Banner Health, All of Us Research Program – Colorado Medical Director
• “All of the mothers: The confluence of OXTR variation and social determinants of health on the risk for postpartum hemorrhage” – Principal Investigator: Elise Erickson, PhD, CNM, FACNM, Assistant Professor, Biobehavioral Health Sciences Division, UArizona College of Nursing
• “Investigating asthma-related phenotypes dissecting novel functional genetic variants associated with asthma susceptibility, asthma severity and exacerbations in the All of Us Research Program” – Principal Investigator: Xingnan Li, PhD, Associate Professor, Division of Genetics, Genomics and Precision Medicine, Department of Medicine, UArizona College of Medicine – Tucson
• “Leveraging All of Us to Gain Biological Insight into How Variation at MFAP2 Shapes Human Biology” – Principal Investigator: Casey Romanoski, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, College of Medicine – Tucson
• “Discovery of Immunogenic Associations with Disease and Differential Risk Across Diverse Populations” – Principal Investigator: Travis Wheeler, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science, Coit College of Pharmacy 

An initiative of the National Institutes of Health, All of Us aims to build one of the largest and most diverse databases of health information of its kind by gathering genetic, lifestyle and environmental information from 1 million or more people, with a special emphasis on increasing diversity in health research. Currently, All of Us UArizona-Banner leads the nation in enrollments with more than 57,000 participants.

At All of Us UArizona-Banner in Arizona and Colorado, registered researchers can access health data to perform studies. There are more than 3,000 research projects underway in the All of Us Researcher Workbench, focusing on topics such as socioeconomic implications on cancer outcomes, race and ethnicity factors in cardiovascular disease, and sociocultural influences on outcomes of COVID-19, among others.

“Such studies include the discovery of new genetic variants, genome- and phenome-wide association studies to determine the link between genetics and various diseases, research into polygenic risk scores that may be used to predict disease with genetics, and studies of ancestral and genetic influences versus social and environmental influences and how those impact health,” Dr. Karnes said.

As a government-funded program committed to open data and science, All of Us will make data broadly accessible to researchers of all kinds, including citizen scientists, to support thousands of studies across a wide range of health topics. To date, more than 335,000 All of Us participants have completed initial steps of the program, including providing bio samples for analysis. A recent release of new data includes nearly 100,000 whole genomes and 165,000 genome-wide arrays, as well as participant data on social determinants of health enabling new opportunities for research. 

To learn more, or to enroll, visit AllofUsAZ.org or call 877-268-2684.

The University of Arizona-Banner Health Program is supported under the National Institutes of Health All of Us Research Program funding award OT2OD026549 with previous awards UG3OD023171-01 and UG3OD023171-01S1 and the CEAL funding award OT2-HL156812. 

“All of Us” and the All of Us logo are registered service marks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.