July 2014

This week, the ATS joined partners in the Friend of VA Research and Health Coalition to host a Congressional briefing on the VA research program's Million Veteran Initiative (MVP). MVP is a national, voluntary research program funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research & Development. The goal of MVP is to partner with veterans receiving their care in the VA Healthcare System to study how genes affect health. MVP will build one of the world's largest medical databases by collecting blood samples and health information from one million veteran volunteers. Data collected from MVP will be stored anonymously for research on diseases impacting veterans.

Timothy O'Leary MD, VA Chief Research and Development Office, John Concato, MD, Co-PI of the MVP program and John Bradley, Vietnam veteran and Senior Advisor at Disabled American Veterans, were present at the briefing and shared with Congressional staff how the MVP genetic data base would provide a powerful research tool for VA researchers to better study and understand genetic contributions to disease in the veteran population.