The National Institutes of Health is operating a bus, equipped with DNA testing materials, across areas of New Orleans to get more participants for its All of Us research program, according to NOLA.com.
The All of Us bus makes weekly visits to New Orleans-based neighborhoods and can take a few donors at a time. Participants can enter the bus where they are required to complete informational and consent forms before providing blood and urine samples for the study.
NIH launched All of Us last year as a way to gather health information from people across the U.S. and to develop a comprehensive database to support future precision medicine research. The national initiative aims to collect DNA from 1 million people across the U.S. in the next four years, according to the report.
Various healthcare organizations are involved in the project, and Tulane University in New Orleans and Baton Rouge-based Louisiana State University health centers are managing operation efforts in the metro area of New Orleans. Once a donor's information is collected on the DNA bus, the samples are sent overnight to Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic for analysis before being delivered to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., where all participants' data is stored.