Summary:

Foundation funds will be used to develop the Research Program on Genes, Environment and Health (RPGEH) based in the 3.3 million-member Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Plan of Northern California. The RPGEH represents a unique database that will link together comprehensive electronic medical records, data on relevant behavioral and environmental factors, and genetic data from consenting health plan members. It will provide a longitudinal focus, established by the continuous follow-up of participants in the health plan's comprehensive electronic medical record. The location of the RPGEH within Kaiser will also enable rapid translation of research findings into improvements in medical care, with projects designed to examine how best to utilize new information about genetic and environmental factors to "personalize" prevention and treatment of disease. Finally, the RPGEH will help develop better understanding of the ethical, legal, and social implications of participation in genetic research and the use of genetic information in medical care. The principle deliverables from this project include: (a) a biorepository with 200,0000 samples, including a large random sample of survey respondents who will form the basis of a prospective cohort, as well as high value samples that facilitate early disease-specific studies; (b) an integrated and secure database with linked clinical, environmental and genetic data; (c) policies and procedures for collaborations/access that encourage wide collaboration and enable broad sharing of the project's data with the scientific community as well as documentation of the work of the collaborations' access committee in reviewing requests for access and collaboration, the results of the reviews, the reasons for approval or denial, and outcomes in terms of collaborations and access to data; and (d) evidence of the utilization of the resources through funded research projects that will enable the biorepository to reach its full complement of 500,000 samples.

Grant Details:

Approved award: $8,563,940
Awarded on: Dec 2, 2008
Time frame: Dec 1, 2008 - Nov 30, 2010
Grant number: 64362

Grantee:

Kaiser Foundation Research Institute
http://www.kp.org
1800 Harrison Street
Oakland, CA 94612-3433
(510) 625-4724

Contact Information:

Catherine Schaefer, Ph.D. (Project Director)
cathy.schaefer@kp.org
Phone: (510) 891-3751

Neil Risch, Ph.D. (Project Director)
rischn@humgen.ucsf.edu
Phone: (415) 476-1127