Unveiling the Future of Medicine: A Revolutionary Research Initiative
Imagine a world where doctors can predict and prevent diseases before they even begin to show symptoms. This is the groundbreaking vision of a new research initiative, a collaborative effort between the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU), and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine (HJF).
The project, named "ORIGIN: Omics to Characterize Preclinical Stages of Non-Infectious Diseases," is a multidisciplinary disease-prevention study that brings together 10 specialties within the Mount Sinai Health System. With an ambitious goal, the study aims to analyze stored blood samples from up to 13,000 active-duty U.S. service members, collected years before any diagnosis, using advanced molecular "omics" tools.
But here's where it gets controversial: by studying the blood of service members years before they get sick, researchers can map the molecular road to disease and develop tools to change course. This proactive approach to medicine could benefit not just military families, but every American.
A Decade of Partnership, Now Expanded Globally
"For years, we have dreamed of being able to tell a patient: 'We see this coming, and here is what we can do about it,'" said Jean-Frédéric Colombel, MD, Professor of Medicine (Gastroenterology) and Co-Director of The Helmsley Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Co-Principal Investigator of ORIGIN. "ORIGIN is the realization of that dream."
For more than a decade, Dr. Colombel has partnered with USU researchers to study inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in military personnel using the Department of Defense Serum Repository (DoDSR), which contains millions of longitudinal blood samples. Their research identified molecular signals in the blood years before IBD was diagnosed.
Expanding the Model
ORIGIN dramatically expands this model. While the earlier effort focused on one disease, ORIGIN will study more than 25 conditions simultaneously, including rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease, neurodegenerative disease, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), colon cancer, lung cancer, and heart failure. The effort is powered by the Precision Immunology Institute at Mount Sinai (PrIISM), whose cross-disciplinary model is specifically designed to break down the walls that traditionally separate medical specialties.
Why the Military? A Unique Window into Human Health
U.S. military service members receive comprehensive, routine health monitoring from the moment they enlist, creating an extraordinary long-term medical record that is unlike anything available in the civilian world. The DoDSR holds serial blood samples from millions of service members, many collected a decade or more before any illness emerged. For researchers, this is a scientific treasure.
ORIGIN will use this resource to answer questions that have never been answerable before, including:
- What is happening in the body five years before someone is diagnosed with lupus?
- What molecular changes precede early-onset colon cancer-a disease on the rise in younger adults-by three years?
- How do military-specific environmental exposures like burn pits and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS, aka "forever chemicals," which are found at more than 700 U.S. military sites) alter the body's biology and raise disease risk?
Breaking Medical Silos: The PrIISM Approach
One of the most exciting aspects of ORIGIN is the way it is structured. ORIGIN is designed to break from the traditional model of studying one disease at a time. Instead, 10 departments across Mount Sinai Health System are collaborating under PrIISM to look for shared biological pathways across different conditions.
Using advanced "omics" technologies, researchers will analyze proteins, metabolites, environmental exposures, and immune responses from blood samples, integrating these data through sophisticated computational modeling. By uncovering common molecular roots of disease, the team hopes to develop treatments and prevention strategies that work across multiple conditions-and ultimately reclassify illness based on molecular biology rather than the organ it affects.
"ORIGIN is exactly the kind of bold, boundary-breaking science that PrIISM was built to support," said Miriam Merad, MD, PhD, Director of PrIISM, and Mount Sinai's Co-Principal Investigator for ORIGIN. "By uniting 10 departments and bridging the worlds of military medicine and academic research, we are creating something entirely new-a molecular atlas of how disease begins. The potential to prevent illness before it starts, and to rewrite how we classify and treat dozens of conditions, is truly transformative for patients everywhere."
A Study with Real-World Impact
The study timeline covers samples collected between October 2003 and September 2025, and the project is expected to run for at least 10 years-with findings that could reshape clinical guidelines, drug development, and public health policy for generations.
Diseases targeted by ORIGIN include conditions that are increasingly common among younger Americans, such as early-onset colon cancer, PTSD, and Crohn's disease, making its findings urgently relevant far beyond the military community.
