Newsletter 2019: Q4

Top News from All of Us

Change in All of Us Leadership

Dr. Josh Denny will be the new Chief Executive Officer of the All of Us Research Program. Dr. Denny will be transitioning from his current role as the principal investigator for the All of Us Data and Research Center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) in Nashville, Tennessee. Josh is a Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine at VUMC and has significant prior experience with other large research efforts, including Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network and the Implementing Genomics in Practice (IGNITE) Network.

Current All of Us Director Eric Dishman will become the program’s Chief Innovation Officer. Deputy Director Stephanie Devaney will become the program’s Chief Operating Officer. Eric, Stephanie, and Josh will continue to work closely together.

Statement from NIH Director Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D.:  I am delighted to announce the selection of Joshua Denny, M.D., M.S., as Chief Executive Officer of the All of Us Research Program. As CEO, Josh will oversee NIH’s efforts to build one of the largest and most comprehensive precision medicine research platforms in the world, in partnership with a diverse network of awardees and participants. In this position, Josh will work in close collaboration with All of Us Deputy Director Stephanie Devaney, Ph.D., who is being promoted to Chief Operating Officer—a new position in which she will assume additional responsibilities in leading the operations of the program and its extensive consortium of awardees and other partners. Stephanie also will continue to oversee the program’s policy work, serve as principal liaison to the Institutional Review Board and Trans-NIH Liaisons Coordinating Team, and provide expert counsel on key initiatives.

Eric Dishman, who currently leads All of Us, will become Chief Innovation Officer, leveraging his prior experience in Silicon Valley to guide strategic planning efforts and build a culture of innovation. This work will include creating a pipeline to support rapid delivery of exploratory projects for future development. Eric has brought tremendous vision and dedication to the program as its inaugural leader, and I’m grateful that he will continue to share his talents with us in this new role.

Read the full statement here

New Data in the Data Browser

The latest data release in the Data Browser more than doubles the data available. The release includes:

  • More data across all domains. This release includes more than 113,000 electric health records (EHR) and more than 225,000 completed surveys. 
  • Three new surveys: Personal Medical History, Family Medical History, and Healthcare Access & Utilization.

Click Here to Check It Out!

Currently on the Research Hub: The Researcher Workbench User Testing

The Researcher Workbench platform and its suite of tools will provide approved researchers with access to de-identified individual-level data. We are currently conducting user testing of the Researcher Workbench with a small group of researchers from the All of Us consortium. Testing will expand to include a larger audience in 2020. 

User testing began in early November with an in-person kick-off meeting in Nashville. Testers are participating in a series of demonstration projects to show the diversity, quality, and utility of the All of Us data and research tools. The projects will help validate the All of Us database and replicate some known risk associations, like the association between smoking and cancers. We will share more information about these projects and any resulting publications as they become available.

Some of the topics for demonstration projects include:

  • Cardiovascular disease
  • Cancer
  • Diabetes and obesity
  • Opioids and pain

We want to ensure we are creating the best product we can with all types of researchers in mind. That’s why the Data and Research Center, along with the National Institutes of Health, held a User Testing Experience Workshop earlier this month. The workshop provided an opportunity for researchers to give feedback on their experience using the Researcher Workbench.

In the meantime, check out our Data Snapshots. 

See how the All of Us Research Program is growing by visiting our Data Snapshots, where you’ll find summary statistics on the cohort’s size and demographics.

From our team at the Data and Research Center, thank you for being a partner and for your support this year. Happy holidays!

Questions? Email us at support@researchallofus.org.