The Broad Institute is a consortium of partners involved in the All of Us project, a massive initiative to sequence the human genome. The Institute’s Genomics Platform currently generates more than half the data. This data has been processed by researchers at the Broad Institute like Lee Lichtenstein (associate director of computational methods for Data Sciences Platform). Their goal is to help scientists answer the questions driving the project.
The Broad Institute is home to 4,000 researchers in different fields. The Broad Institute has a unique hashtag #WhyIScience that allows members to share reasons why they support the institute. The Institute aims to accelerate progress on disease research and discovery around the world. The Institute’s members work in collaboration across many disciplines to find new treatments for diseases and improve our quality-of-life. Broad is home to scientists from many disciplines, including engineering and genetics.
The Institute supports Massachusetts’ pooled testing program in K-12 schools. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health and Elementary and Secondary Education coordinate this initiative. The program began in February 2021 and will continue until the 2021-2022 school year. As part of the program, the DESE pairs schools with one of three pooled testing organizations. These organizations then send samples from the schools to a laboratory for analysis. In partnership with CIC Health, Broad’s team processes the samples from these schools.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists around the world are responding with unprecedented speed to these challenges. In addition to developing new treatments and diagnostics, Broad Institute scientists are investigating the SARS-CoV-2 virus. They are working closely with local governments and health care professionals to develop new ways to combat the disease. This work led to the creation a global research network, the Broad Institute Genomics Platform. It allows the institute to scale its lab and perform up to 2,000 COVID-19 test per day.