The Novo Nordisk Foundation has committed $53 million to renew and expand its Center for Genomic Mechanisms of Disease at the Broad Institute.
The funding will continue to support efforts to decode the biological drivers of type 2 diabetes and obesity and identify new therapeutic targets by combining large-scale genomic data generation, artificial intelligence, and cell models.
Specifically, the center will expand two research programs: the Human Gene Regulation Map, which studies how genetic variants affect disease-causing genetic circuits and programs; and Flagship Disease Projects, which examine disease biology through protein-coding genes, molecular pathways, and cell functions.
“Cardiometabolic diseases including diabetes and obesity are the leading cause of death globally. Yet we still don’t understand enough about the biological mechanisms that drive them,” Mads Thomsen, CEO of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, said in a statement. “By uniting Denmark’s world-class expertise in metabolic and population research with the Broad’s unparalleled genomic and computational capabilities, we’re already seeing advances that might not otherwise have been possible.”
Since launching in 2021 with an initial $47.5 million grant, the center has grown into a collaboration spanning 18 research groups and more than 120 scientists. According to the Broad Institute, it has produced resources for cellular and genomic aspects of metabolic disease as well as technologies for establishing function of variants, datasets linking genetics to cell biology, and tools for genetic discovery across diverse populations.
Over the next five years, researchers plan to generate hundreds of millions of detailed cell profiles, including from fat cells and brain cells grown from stem cells, to train AI models that predict how DNA changes disrupt cellular health.