The next projects for Apple's enormously successful ResearchKit platform could include analyzing a user's DNA.
Though only rumored at this point, MIT Technology Review is reporting that the University of California San Francisco and New York's Mount Sinai Hospital are both considering projects that would combine a user's gene test – perhaps carried out by a mobile "spit test" that's taken by the user and sent to a laboratory – with data collected through ResearchKit to analyze genetic tendencies.
UCSF is reportedly planning a study that would analyze genetic data from expectant mothers to study the causes of premature birth. At Mount Sinai, an ongoing study called the Resilience Project is looking at why some people whose genes show signs of inherited diseases like cystic fibrosis remain healthy. The study has collected data from more than 500,000 people, though with much of that compiled anonymously, researchers have run into roadblocks in connecting data with specific users.
The initial success of ResearchKit and the five apps that were launched with the platform in March - Stanford University reported more than 11,000 signed up for a cardiovascular study within 24 hours, while thousands have signed up for an asthma study being conducted by Mount Sinai and a Parkinson's study sponsored by Sage Bionetworks and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - has Apple officials thinking about the future.
[See also: Apple ResearchKit: Can patient-generated data be trusted?]
“Apple launched ResearchKit and got a fantastic response," Gholson Lyon, a geneticist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, who isn’t involved with the studies, told MIT Technology Review. "The obvious next thing is to collect DNA.”
“The first five studies have been great and are showing how fast Apple can recruit. I and many others are looking at types of trials that are more sophisticated,” added Atul Butte, leader of the UCSF study and head of the Institute for Computational Health Sciences, who stressed he could not comment on Apple’s involvement. "I look forward to the day when we can get more sophisticated data than activity, like DNA or clinical data.”
The key to the projects' success lies in connecting a user's genetic data, collected at gene-sequencing centers like those at UCSF and Mount Sinai, with health and wellness information gathered through the iPhone. By populating a user's own health record with genetic data, researchers are hoping to create an individual genetic profile.
Apple won't comment on the specifics, but an anonymous source in the company told MIT Technology Review that its eventual aim is to "enable the individual to show and share" that profile with anyone from family members and caregivers to research studies.
See also:
Apple fine-tunes its ResearchKit guidelines
Apple makes ResearchKit open source
mHealth masters: Duke's Ricky Bloomfield on the promise of HealthKit and SMART on FHIR
