The New York Genome Center has awarded six grants to researchers to study cancer in non-white populations, the New York Times reports.
As part of its Polyethnic-1000 research initiative, the NYGC plans to support more diverse genetic studies, since genetic research over the years has focused primarily on white populations, the Times notes. As GenomeWeb reported, the Polyethnic-1000 research initiative launched in 2018 and, through it, NYGC has now awarded up to $2.1 million in grant funding over the next two years.
"Leaving people out is an equity issue and a knowledge issue," Weill Cornell's Harold Varmus, who is overseeing the initiative, tells the Times.
According to the Times, the six grants are going to studies of pancreatic, colorectal, and endometrial cancer among African Americans as well as lung cancer among Asian Americans. Additionally, the initiative is to fund studies of breast and prostate cancer among people with African ancestry and of the role of ethnicity in bladder cancer.