In the news

Sources: OPHG announcement, Commentary

Federal funding for the US Office of Public Health Genomics (OPHG) has been dramatically cut from more than $11 million to under $1 million per year. 

The predecessor of the OPHG was established by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) under the auspices of Dr Muin Khoury in 1997– the same year that Dr Ron Zimmern founded the PHG Foundation’s UK predecessor body, the Public Health Genetics Unit. As OPHG Director, Dr Khoury has built up an admirable operation and made enormous progress in championing and driving forward the application of genomics for population health. The restructured organisation will still work to address ‘issues relevant to genomics in health policy and practice’, providing expertise in public heath genomics, the evaluation and implementation of emerging genomic applications. However, the scale of their operations will necessarily be reduced.

Ron Zimmern, whilst appreciating the need for restrictions in public funding in the US as elsewhere in the world, has criticised the scale of the OPHG budget reduction (see commentary), suggesting that the CDC has ‘failed to comprehend the strategic importance of genomic science for the health of individuals and populations’ and of the ongoing need to build infrastructure to allow the rapid translation of genomic innovations into health services.