The National Academies’ Roundtable on Genomics and Precision Health: Where we have been and where we are heading

Abstract

The clinical application of genetics and genomics to advance precision health is one of the most dynamic and promising areas of medicine. In 2020, building on nearly 15 years of work, the Roundtable on Genomics and Precision Health of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine undertook a strategic planning process to assess its strengths, consider the current challenges facing the field, and set out new goals for its future work. As a result, the Roundtable has updated its vision and mission and prioritized four major areas of inquiry-innovation, dialogue, equity, and adoption-while keeping true to its founding goal of providing a neutral convening space for the diversity of stakeholders in genomics and precision health. The Roundtable is unique for its breadth of membership and is committed to fostering a new era for precision health built on decades of expanding knowledge and the emergence of new technologies. To achieve its goals, the Roundtable seeks to broaden its membership's diversity and to engage with new audiences. Roundtable members explore how evidence-based discoveries in genomics could be adopted and used in innovative ways to better serve human health, how equitable access to genomic and precision health technologies can be ensured, and how the Roundtable and broader genomics and precision health community can communicate more effectively to inform the public regarding genomics and precision health. As a first principle, the Roundtable is working to support the overall goal that all people benefit from genomics for precision health.