Representative Precision Medicine Research Through Partnerships

Purpose

This funding opportunity aims to support precision medicine and representative research that leverage partnerships within California, include underrepresented populations, who have been underrecognized or historically excluded, as research participants, and reduce health disparities, so that research benefits all people within California and promotes health innovation for all California communities.

Description

Award selection will have three stages. Deadlines: Letter of Intent (required): 11/21/25 Initial Application: 1/23/26 Full Application: 4/24/26 The California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine (CIAPM) will award $6 million to support approximately 3-5 project teams conducting representative precision medicine research projects in California over a 2.5-year project term. Precision medicine calls for the modern application of scientific data and clinical practice toward the individualization of prevention, diagnosis, measurement, and treatment of disease and wellbeing. This funding opportunity aims to support precision medicine and representative research that leverage partnerships within California, include underrepresented populations, who have been underrecognized or historically excluded, as research participants, and reduce health disparities, so that research benefits all people within California and promotes health innovation for all California communities. Research teams must be co-led by at least one California non-profit academic research institution and either (1) at least one nonprofit community-based organization, patient advocacy group, community clinic, or public or Tribal entity that adds lived experience, expertise, and/or community or data assets OR (2) another California non-profit academic research institution that adds capacity, expertise, capability, scalability, and/or training opportunities. Partnerships should aim to break down silos between academic institutions and communities (academic-community partnerships) or between academic institutions (academic-academic partnerships), connect different areas and methods of analyses within precision medicine (such as cellular and biological systems as well as community, population, and societal systems), and foster co-learning in which partners’ strengths and capacity needs are acknowledged for meaningful integration of perspectives. Research projects must aim to make biomedical research more inclusive, and thus more applicable and beneficial to all Californians. The applicant must describe how their application will support representative research, incorporate a precision medicine approach to study health disparities, potentially including social determinants of health data, and leverage partnerships. Projects must take place in California, and data should focus on people that live in California but are not limited to only California populations. Projects must demonstrate prioritization of recruiting, enrolling, and retaining participants who are from underrepresented populations. The proposed research must include a deliverable of a precision medicine asset, such as a new dataset, previous datasets that have been integrated and/or optimized for interoperability, new methodology, services, resources, or a database for patients or interested research participants. The proposed research must also include the creation of promotional materials that encourage participation of individuals from underrepresented populations in the research study and that describe the importance of biomedical research in the context of the research question and populations engaged.