Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Pharmacogenomics Arthur Harralson, Pharm.D., is consortium co-investigator and Washington, D.C. site principal investigator on a new, five-year, $9.6 million grant funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, one of the 27 Institutes and Centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation’s premier medical research agency.
The grant, titled “African-American Cardiovascular Pharmacogenetic CONsorTium (ACCOuNT): Discovery and Translation,” is stewarded by Dr. Harralson, along with consortium principal investigator Minoli Perrera, Pharm.D., Ph.D., of Northwestern University and a diverse group of experts from various organizations and institutions such as Stanford, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, The George Washington University and the Washington, D.C., VA Medical Center.
“We are very excited about the opportunity to continue our work in health disparities with the generous support of the NIH,” said Dr. Harralson. “Our group has already discovered a number of genetic variations that have significant implications for cardiovascular health in African-Americans.”
ACCOuNT will develop a model for the discovery, translation and implementation of precision medicine in African-Americans that will lay the groundwork for continued investment and growth in minority pharmacogenomics. The consortium will establish a multi-institutional center across two major cities to conduct large-scale pharmacogenomics studies in African-Americans with cardiovascular diseases. The effort’s results will help to establish the largest repository of pharmacogenomics information for people of African ancestry, and establish a public genomics resource for continued translational research to address health disparities.
