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Recently the Honorable Michael O. Leavitt, United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, expressed the nation's appreciation to participants of the Framaingham Heart Study. Their many years of dedication has made possible the SHARe (SNP Health Association Research) project, the new state of the art phase of scientific discovery previously announced in the Winter 2007 newsletter. The SHARe project was officially launched with a nationwide presentation in Washington on October 1, 2007. In accordance with the expressed wishes of FHS participants, FHS genomic data have been organized and is being distributed to researchers worldwide by the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute, Boston University and the National Library of Medicine. With the approval of both a SHARe Data Access Committee, as well as the institutional review boards of their local universities and medical centers, researchers are beginning to access and analyze the data. Through this project researchers are able to dig into vast fields of genetic information from FHS DNA and sift though mountains of data from over fifty years of FHS examinations with some of the newest statistical methods. The goal is to find patterns within the extensive FHS three-generational data sets that will unlock secrets to improved health and disease prevention. The possibilities for discovery are unprecedented.

If you have any questions about the SHARe project or any other aspect of participation in the Framingham Heart Study, please contact your participant coordinator or Maureen Valentino at 800-536-4143.

On November 29, 2007, The Honorable Michael O. Leavitt, United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), came to the Sheraton Hotel in Framingham to express the nation's appreciation to participants of the Framingham Heart Study (FHS).

This event also celebrated the upcoming 60th anniversary of the Framingham Heart Study and included as guests Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Director of the Ntaional Institutes of Health. Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, Director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, Dr. Robert Brown, President of Boston University, Dr. Karen Antman, Dean of Boston University School of Medicine, Dr. Daniel Levy, Director of the Framingham Heart Study, and Dr. Philip Wolf, Principal Investigator of the Framingham Heart Study, as well as several local and state public officials. Each participant of the Heart Study received an invitation to attend this event along with family and guests. Below are excerpts of the remarks by the the Honorable Michael Leavitt.

"…I asked Dr. Zerhouni and Dr. Nabel for this opportunity to come and talk with you because there are so many things to acknowledge and be thankful for here, as this Study begins its 60th year. The first thing to be thankful for is the Study itself. This is the Study that first pointed us toward the risk factors for cardiovascular disease that are so familiar to us all today.

These factors are part of the way I think about my own health and the choices I make about what to eat and how to exercise. And that holds true for people all across the country and around the world. When it comes to getting across a message, you've had quite a success! …the Framingham Study has given us the knowledge and with it the power to make healthier choices, and to prevent disease, and to treat disease more effectively. That power was made possible by the willingness of 14,000 study participants in the Framingham area to share their health information. Framingham is a very special case: 60 years and three generations of sharing your health information. This is long-term, conscientious commitment. Maybe after all these years, it may seem no big deal to you. But it's a rare gift you've given, and that you're continuing to give.

For a health care researcher, the Framingham data looks like 24-carat gold. The reliability and the depth that researchers see in this data come from your consistency and openness over more than half a century. All of us at HHS, all those who work in the health care field, and indeed all Americans owe a debt of gratitude to patient volunteers. We owe an expression of thanks - and yet that thanks is rarely articulated.

Here today in Framingham - I am honored to have the opportunity today to say "thank you" to all those who take part in medical research everywhere. …This is the silent gift of all patient volunteers. Every so often we should break that silence and say "Thank you". I'm honored to have that opportunity here today.

There's another reason to recognize the participants in the Framingham Heart Study at this point in time - and that's your willingness to take a new leap into the future. If the Framingham Study hasn't already given enough, I believe you're on the cusp of giving much more. I'm talking about Project SHARe. This new phase for the Framingham Study is so important. It's part of a new generation of research. And if this new research succeeds as we expect it to, it will help us achieve a new level of effectiveness in medical care. I call the goal "Personalized Health Care," and it means making health care much more individualized and precise for every patient. Personalized Health Care depends on learning much more about the genetic basis of our health. By understanding the connection between genes and specific health conditions, we'll be able to target health care much more precisely.

Today, our medical knowledge is tied to our anatomy. We talk about lung cancer and heart disease. But in the future, we'll be talking about diseases at a much different level. We'll be talking about molecular-based diseases. That will give us all kinds of new treatments that are effective for very specific conditions in individual patients. Personalized Health Care can help us know our individual vulnerabilities. It can make health care more preventive. It can help us spot the onset of disease at a much earlier stage. And it can help us prescribe new therapies that are much more targeted and more effective.

Now there's no way around the fact that we have a long way to go to achieve the promise of Personalized Health Care. We have years, and even decades of work ahead of us, in many different fields. But we also have a head start, in the form of studies like Framingham. One of the most fundamental building blocks for achieving Personalized Health Care is the kind of information that can be gathered from existing studies, just as is being done through Proejct SHARe.

In all of this, Framingham is a leader. And in the future, when health information technology is widely adopted, I believe we'll be turning again to this Study. We'll need new analytical tools and new structures to understand the large amount of patient data that will become available. And once again, Framingham will be ahead of the curve. This Study will have new lessons to teach us about aggregating and analyzing large amounts of patient data, getting sound results, and doing it securely.

That's why we're here today - to recognize the leadership of this Study and the generosity of its participants, in the past 60 years and in a future of Personalized Health Care."

"Framingham is a leader" in the field of health information technology…
The Honorable Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mike Leavitt

"The [Framingham] Study has moved medicine from a paradigm of diagnosis and treatment to prediction and prevention…"
Dr. Karen Antman, Dean of Boston University School of Medicine

"And through Framingham, the National Institutes of Health recognized the irreplaceable role that public participation must have in any successful biomedical research program… I thank you for making NIH what it is today…"
Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Director, National Institutes of Health

"…Thus evolved a wonderful symbiotic relationship [between staff and participants]… We have always trusted that, whatever we are asked to do, our best interests were always considered first and foremost…"
Dr. David Anghinetti, Offspring Cohort Participant, Framingham Heart Study

"…They [clinic staff] treated me great…they showed me all the attention…I was so grateful for all they did for me…I am going to be 91 and I still can spell 'world' backwards."
Helen Vaughn, Original Cohort Participant, Framingham Heart Study

"On this occasion of the celebration of the 60th year of the Framingham Heart Study as well as the celebration of entering into a new phase, the SHARe project, I would want you to know that I am honored to 'Stand and Be Seen'… I am happy to be seen as a participant of the OMNI Cohort of the Framingham Heart Study. Thank you for the inclusion of myself as well as the hundreds of other [minorities] from Framingham who have not only benefited from the Study by enabling them to be proactive in their own health care management, but also by giving them an opportunity to contribute to the furtherance of research in the field…"
Rev. Dr. J. Anthony Lloyd, OMNI Participant, Framingham Heart Study