Rochester, MN (KROC-AM News) - The National Institutes of Health has announced the Mayo Clinic will serve as the national Precision Medicine Initiative Cohort Program biobank.

The designation includes $142 million in funding over five years. The biobank will hold a research repository of biologic samples for a long-term study that aims to enroll at least 1 million participants throughout the United States in an effort to better understand individual differences that contribute to health and disease to advance precision medicine.

The Precision Medicine Initiative was launched by President Obama last year. A statement from the Mayo Clinic describes precision medicine is an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person.

“Mayo Clinic has a responsibility to seek new medical knowledge and share that knowledge with others. The Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine is proud to accelerate research nationally through the PMI Cohort Program biobank,” says John Noseworthy, M.D., Mayo Clinic president and CEO. “This important effort over the coming years complements the Destination Medical Center initiative and Discovery Square at Mayo Clinic designed for global research innovation and collaboration.”

The statement say the Mayo Clinic is investing in its Florida and Minnesota campuses in the PMI Cohort Program biobank with a 30,000-square-foot facility expansion, including advanced automation technology, state-of-the-art robotic freezers, and personnel.

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