2025 a2 National Symposium Plenary Talk: Jordan Smoller, MD — An Introduction to the All of Us Research Program

Overview: The All of Us Research Program, a flagship initiative of the NIH, aims to build one of the most comprehensive and diverse biomedical data resources in the world by enrolling over one million participants across the United States. Dr. Jordan Smoller, a lead investigator in the program, outlines its structure, scope, and transformative potential for advancing precision medicine. With over 850,000 participants enrolled and more than 630,000 contributing data, the program integrates electronic health records (EHRs), genomic data, physical measurements, surveys, and wearable device data.

A key innovation is the program’s emphasis on diversity—over 80% of participants self-identify as members of groups historically underrepresented in biomedical research. The cloud-based Researcher Workbench provides secure, flexible access to individual-level data through a “passport model,” enabling dynamic cohort building, reproducible analytics, and collaborative research without the need for separate IRB approvals. 

The dataset includes over 400,000 whole genome sequences and more than 600,000 survey responses, with growing integration of environmental, claims, and mortality data. Early studies have identified hundreds of millions of novel genetic variants and demonstrated the utility of the resource for polygenic risk score calibration, drug repurposing, and AI-driven discovery. Ancillary studies, such as Nutrition for Precision Health and Exploring the Mind, further enrich the dataset with deep phenotyping. 

The All of Us platform represents a paradigm shift in biomedical research infrastructure, offering unprecedented opportunities for scalable, equitable, and data-driven health discovery. 

Jordan Smoller, MD, ScD, lead PI of the New England Precision Medicine Consortium as part of the NIH All of Us Research Program and co-Chair of the All of Us Science Committee; Jerrold F. Rosenbaum Endowed Chair in Psychiatry at Mass General Hospital; Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health

About the Speaker: Jordan Smoller, MD, ScD is a psychiatrist, epidemiologist, and geneticist whose research focus has been understanding the genetic and environmental determinants of psychiatric disorders across the lifespan and using big data to advance precision mental health including improved methods to reduce risk and enhance resilience.   

Dr. Smoller is the Jerrold F. Rosenbaum Endowed Chair in Psychiatry, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. He is Associate Chief for Research in the MGH Department of Psychiatry, Director of the Center for Precision Psychiatry, Director of the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit in the MGH Center for Genomic Medicine, and co-Director of the Center for Suicide Research and Prevention at MGH and Harvard. Dr. Smoller is a Tepper Family MGH Research Scholar, Director of the Omics Unit of the MGH Division of Clinical Research, co-Director of the Mass General Brigham Training Program in Precision and Genomic Medicine, and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute, of MIT and Harvard. 

He has played a leading role in national and international efforts to advance precision medicine. He is a Principal Investigator (PI) in the eMERGE (Electronic Medical Records and Genomics) network, founding PI of the PsycheMERGE Consortium and lead PI of the New England Precision Medicine Consortium as part of the NIH All of UsResearch Program.  Dr. Smoller is an author of more than 600 scientific publications and is also the author of The Other Side of Normal (HarperCollins/William Morrow, 2012).