From Genes to Public Health: The Journey Continues!
At the end of 2024, I retired from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) after a 40-year career in public health. For the past 26 years, I led the Office of Public Health Genomics (PHG), which was formed in 1998. During my career, I was lucky to witness and contribute to the development of three fields: genetic epidemiology, PHG, and precision public health (PPH). Together, these fields are increasingly crucial in realizing the population health benefits of genome discoveries and other new technologies. But we are still in the early days on the trajectory from genes to public health. With many global challenges ahead, the next 40 years are going to be more exciting than the last 40 years in applying these fields to emerging validated tests and interventions that can save lives, prevent disease, and reduce health inequities. Many of the advances in genomics translation and implementation could be unraveled because of government budget cuts in science and public health. He
