AllofUs Genetic Research program (NIH)

[Gordo]

I did a search but didn't see it mentioned anywhere, thought some people here might want to sign up for this free genetic research program (must be over 18 and a US citizen):

https://www.joinallofus.org/learn-more

https://allofus.nih.gov/

They will do whole genome sequencing on your DNA and give you the results, might be useful for medical purposes and even for tweaking diet or assessing risk factors, etc. The data is protected/secured and only available to approved researchers in non-personally identifiable ways. I signed up years ago and just finally got contacted in the last month to send in a saliva sample for sequencing.  They are trying to get 1 million participants.

[Dean Pomerleau]

I too have been part of the All of Us study for several years. I still haven't seem much of my genetics results, just a few silly traits like cilantro preference and earwax type. I gave them my saliva quite a while ago (over a year) and they keep sending me updates about how they are rolling out more genetic screening and will be telling us about our data soon, but I haven't seen it yet.

While we're on the topic, there are two other large, longitudinal national health studies I've been a participant on for many years, the Cancer Prevention Study 3 (CPS-3):

https://www.cancer.org/research/cps3-cancer-prevention-study-3.html

and the National Weight Control Registry:

http://www.nwcr.ws/

The CPS-3 is cool because they do fairly frequent substudies of thousands of participants. I've been involved with two of these substudies - one where they had me send in a stool sample and one where they had me wear an accelerometer for a week to measure physical activity. They send out biannual updates about their findings, which is nice. I don't think CPS-3 is accepting new participants.

The Weight Control Registry tracks people who've lost a substantial amount of weight and kept it off for over a year. They send out annual diet and lifestyle surveys to participants. They are always accepting new participants.

--Dean

[Todd Allen]

I signed up for that in the Spring of 2019 and gave samples in November.  I have done all their surveys and given all requested consents.  Still have not received the DNA test results although I have been notified that it should be coming soon.   Note they haven't offered any sequencing data just notification of SNPs of interest and their interpretations, I'm guessing something like one gets from 23andme although probably more limited despite the more comprehensive scan.

[Saul]

I also signed up several years ago.

They did a pretty good analysis of my likely ancestry -- but were wrong in predicting that my earwax would be soft (it's hard).  But, then again, they don't know that I take ice cold showers, and use no soap (IMO, good for the skin microbiome -- but probably not good for the ears.)

  --  Saul