Community & Precision Public Health Program

Precision Medicine acknowledges the intricate threads of our genetic diversity (that individuals are genetically distinct) woven into the vibrant tapestry of humanity we all share. The Mellowes Center is committed to diversifying the genomic data available for research by facilitating precision medicine studies that go deeper than genetic ancestry. With epigenomics and systems biology at the core of our expertise, integrating ethnic diversity with genome function is particularly interesting. Our commitment to diversifying genomic research focuses on community-based, genomics-informed studies integrating ethnic diversity and environmental impacts.

To explore the intersection of ancestry and historical environmental impacts on our community, which also have implications for genomic regulation, our Center seeks to develop studies informed by our community partners and focus on what matters to them. Listening to our community partners is vital to developing better means to convey the health implications of genomic differences and the epigenomics (or regulatory) modifications due to environmental conditions. This is a promising area of research where we aim to leverage the technologies we have developed to study severe and congenital diseases and reimagine them for application to more common diseases and situations affecting individuals in our community. Yet, we underscore the need for this to be a mutual partnership so that all can benefit in ways that align with their values and with consent.

For this reason, our Center has partnered with the MCW Institute for Health and Equity (IHE) not only to develop the pioneering field of Precision Public Health (PPH), which uses better and more precise data to target disease prevention and control as well as to improve health and health equity worldwide, but also to create new careers that will support the practice of precision medicine at a larger scale that reaches more populations. These programs include Masters and certificate programs in Precision Medicine as well as a Masters program in Genetic Counseling.