WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and U.S. Representatives Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) and John Larson (CT-1), applauded Community Health Center, Inc. in Middletown on its selection to participate in the White House Precision Medicine Initiative’s (PMI) Cohort Program, a landmark biomedical research effort focused on expanding individualized disease prevention and treatment. Community health centers selected to participate in the program will collect data that can be used to improve our ability to prevent and treat disease based on individual differences in lifestyle, environment, and genetics. The Community Health Center, Inc. will be receiving an estimated $100,000 out of the $55 million awarded nationally.

“This vital research program will help biomedical researchers and health care providers develop targeted treatments to help Americans live healthier, longer lives. We congratulate the Community Health Center, Inc. for being on the cutting-edge of health care and for earning a spot in this prestigious national research program. We look forward to the impact their work will have on the search for new treatments and cures,” said Blumenthal, Murphy, DeLauro, and Larson. 

The Precision Medicine Initiative is new research effort launched by the White House in January 2015 to revolutionize improving health and treating disease. Under this program, the National Institutes of Health will partner with six Federally Qualified Health Centers across the country, including Community Health Center, Inc., to collect a wide range of biological data – including medical, genetic, environmental, and patient-generated data –in order to better understand disease and tailor treatments. Access to this data will help accelerate biomedical discoveries and provide clinicians with new tools, knowledge, and therapies to select which treatments will work best for which patients.