Genomics England, a subsidiary of the United Kingdom’s Department of Health, is leading the drive to sequence the genomes of 100,000 National Health Service patients through the United Kingdom’s 100k Genome Project. “The United Kingdom will become the first ever country to introduce this technology in its mainstream health system—leading the global race for better tests, better drugs and above all better, more personalized care to save lives,” said Jeremy Hunt, the United Kingdom’s secretary of state for health, in a statement. In the United States, the only nationally coordinated sequencing efforts are being conducted through the Million Veteran Program (MVP) at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The goal of MVP is to build one of the world’s largest medical databases integrating genomic, lifestyle, and clinical health information from 1 million veteran volunteers. Screened research projects from the VA, other federal health agencies, and U.S. academic institutions will be permitted access to anonymized data. To date MVP has enrolled more than 225,000 volunteers. Based on data collected through November 2013, the enrollment profile includes: Participants from 50 VA Medical Centers nationally, with other sites to be added; 42 percent of enrollees to date are aged 60 to 69 years […]