ResearchKit Module Allows Integration Of Data From iPhones
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Mount Sinai Asthma Health and Stanford MyHeart Counts apps are the first to integrate new module.
Personal genetics company 23andMe Research has announced the launch of a new ResearchKit module that allows researchers to integrate genetic information gathered via iPhones into their app-based studies. The collaborative venture will involve Apple, Stanford University, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and LifeMap. Among the first app to integrate the new module are Mount Sinai Asthma Health and Stanford MyHeartCounts.
The Module enables more than 1.2 million 23andMe customers to upload their genetic information directly through the apps via iPhones, and requires an informed consent process. “This new technology gives researchers a turnkey way to integrate genetics into their studies,” explained Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe CEO and founder. “This will enable research on a much broader scale. Incorporating genetics into a platform with the reach of ResearchKit will accelerate insights into illness and disease even further.”
The 23andMe module also will allow interested researchers using the ResearchKit platform to expand the collection of genetic data for their studies beyond current 23andMe customers. Those researchers who choose to offer genotyping services to their study participants through 23andMe, funded by the researchers, could then use the full 23andMe service to provide simple, low cost way to incorporate genetic data into their studies.
Euan Ashley, DPhil, a co-principal investigator of the MyHeartCounts study, says Stanford’s digital consent process is the first smartphone-based consent process for sharing genetic data, noting, “This is the first time that consent for secure sharing of genetic data has been possible on a phone — it’s about putting the power direct in the hands of the participant.”
The Stanford MyHeart Counts study is designed to understand the genetic determinants of exercise, combining responses to a series of subjective questions about how people feel about exercise or when they are embarking on exercise with genetic data. The study will allow researchers to investigate the interaction of genetic variation, activity levels, fitness and cardiovascular health outcomes to better understand heart health.
“Genotype data has revealed such important clues to human biology that combining it with real world measures of physical activity and fitness is a very exciting prospect,” says Ashley, an associate professor of cardiovascular medicine.
The Asthma Health app, co-developed by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and LifeMap Solutions, a subsidiary of BioTime, Inc., will pair DNA data with the patterns and triggers of asthma symptoms. Any 23andMe user can choose to contribute their DNA through the studies’ own apps. The goal of the study is to offer insight into new ways to personalize asthma treatment.
Launched last year, Apple's ResearchKit software, which underpins this new collaborative framework, enables the consent process and expands the collection of large-scale data. However, all information harvested by the apps will be hosted on 23andMe servers, not by Apple, according to MIT Technology Review.