All of Us Researcher Workbench Offers Data Access for Precision Medicine Studies

Based in the cloud, the All of Us Researcher Workbench contains an integrated dataset that includes nearly 100,000 whole genome sequences, survey responses from nearly 330,000 participants, and information from 214,000 electronic health records, alongside physical measurements and wearable device data. The participants mirror the rich diversity of our country. Local and national efforts are underway to accelerate researcher use of this resource to deliver innovations in precision health to individuals across the U.S.

Vouchers offered by ICTR. This April, ICTR offered vouchers to support workbench use for UW research projects that could be finished by the end of the fiscal year (June 30, 2022). Five vouchers have been issued to research teams from different clinical departments. They include:

  • Post-Acute Sequelae SARS Cov-2 (PASC): Can Physical Activity and Select Genomic Markers Predict Long-COVID Risk?
    Dane Cook, PhD (Department of Kinesiology)
  • Assessing Weight Trends in the All of Us Research Program Dataset
    Luke Funk, MD, MPH (Department of Surgery)
  • Producing Polygenic Risk Scores for Hundreds of Human Complex Traits Using All of Us
    Qiongshi Lu, PhD (Department of Biostatistics & Medical Informatics)
  • Characterizing Genetic and Clinical Variable Interactions and Their Importance in Estimating Risk of Developing Breast or Ovarian Cancers in Women
    Irene Ong, PhD (Departments of Biostatistics & Medical Informatics, Obstetrics & Gynecology)
  • Idiopathic Hypersomnia in All of Us: Prevalence, Comorbidities and Genetic Polymorphism
    David Plante, MD, PhD (Department of Psychiatry)

Our local All of Us (AoU) program at UW is nested within ICTR and is led by Co-PIs Elizabeth Burnside, ICTR Deputy Executive Director, and Dorothy Farrar-Edwards, Faculty Director of the UW Collaborative Center for Health Equity. Burnside comments,

Elizabeth BurnsideWe are so pleased to support this group of innovators in clinical and translational science from diverse departments as they undertake novel projects in the All of Us Workbench. As All of Us-Wisconsin enters year five of our NIH funding, our team remains laser-focused on participant engagement, enrollment, and retention activities. Simultaneously, UW is growing a strong scientific community and building momentum for advancing precision health by taking advantage of All of Us data. Congratulations to voucher awardees!

Administrative Supplements Offered by NIH. On May 20, the NIH released an additional, larger mechanism to support use of the workbench for precision medicine research by investigators with current active funding from NIH. The initiative will fund up to 20 supplemental awards in FY2022 and is due July 5, 2022. More details can be found here: Notice of Special Interest: Administrative Supplements to Advance Precision Medicine Using the All of Us Research Program’s Data (NOT-PM-22-002). Read More.

About 80% of the data in the Researcher Workbench is contributed by participants who represent communities that are historically underrepresented in research, including people from racial and ethnic minority groups, people from sexual and gender minority groups, and residents of rural areas. This diversity of participants is what makes the database such a valuable resource for research. Farrar-Edwards notes,

Dorothy Farrar-EdwardsThe Workbench provides data that have never been available before. The All of Us Program is committed to accelerating precision medicine – and enhancing  health equity – particularly for those groups that have never been adequately represented in biomedical research.