Chipping away at the lack of diversity in medical research

By Eileen Drage O’Reilly, Axios

The U.S. scientific community is slowly chipping away at the lack of diversity seen in medical research, but it still has a long way to go, experts tell Axios.

Why it matters: “We are not a nation of white men,” LA BioMed’s David Meyer says. Because race and ethnicity sometimes play a role in how people develop diseases or react to medications, it’s important in this age of “personalized medicine” to expand research to include people of color, the elderly, poorer communities, and those in the LGBTQ community.

Driving the news: The National Institutes of Health earlier this week discussed progress made in the first year of its All of Us program, which aims to enroll at least 1 million people from all types of U.S. communities over a 5-year period. Read more …