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.