A US centre launched last month aims to tackle the growing problem of health disparities among minority ethnic groups. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center for Genomics and Health Disparities is headed by Charles Rotimi, former director of the National Human Genome Center at Howard University in Washington DC. “The mission here is to use genomic tools to understand health disparities,” Rotimi says. Ailments such as heart disease, diabetes and some forms of cancer are often more prevalent, harder to treat and more deadly in African Americans, Latin Americans and Pacific Islanders. Investigating the environmental, cultural and socio-economic reasons is an active area (see Nature 452, 382–383; 2008).

With an annual budget of $1.7 million, Rotimi plans to hire three or four staff scientists, several technicians and many postdocs. Adebowale Adeyemo, for example — a genetic epidemiologist and colleague of Rotimi's at Howard — has researched populations in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and China, and investigated genetic factors in diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity that differ by ethnicity.

“We have accumulated tremendous resources over the years, including 8,000 DNA samples from around the world,” says Rotimi. “These are good data for postdocs to work on.

Rotimi plans to work closely with other NIH institutes, such as the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, much of whose $200-million budget goes into extramural research. Other potential collaborators include the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), which addresses many diseases that afflict minorities. “There's a limit to what we can do,” says Rotimi. “But as this is trans-NIH, we can form collaborations.”

NIDDK director Griffin Rodgers is especially interested in looking at how treatments affect groups differently. One trial showed African American patients' response to hepatitis C treatments was unlike that of the general population. “Whether there are potential genetic components of this has to be explored,” Rodgers says.

Collaborations will help involve researchers holding extramural grants in diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes and prostate and breast cancer, Rodgers says. “This could serve as a focal point, to train not only intramural researchers at the NIH, but also clinical people,” he notes.