D.C. area veterans can help VA with genetic research

The Million Veteran Program – a national research program funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research & Development – has a goal of obtaining one million DNA samples from veterans enrolled in the VA health care system. And veterans in the Washington, D.C., area can be a part of the research.

MVP will be enrolling veterans on June 30 at The American Legion National Headquarters in D.C. at 1608 K. St. NW from 10 a.m. to noon. Enrollment includes providing informed consent and a blood specimen, as well as filling out questionnaires at home.

The goal of MVP is to learn more about how a person's genetics affects their health so that doctors can better understand diseases and design future treatments specific to an individual's molecular body composition. To do this, MVP is building one of the world's largest medical databases by safely collecting blood samples and health information from one million veteran volunteers.

Data collected from MVP will be stored anonymously for research on diseases like diabetes and cancer, and military-related illnesses, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Please RSVP with Joe Plenzler at jplenzler@legion.org by June 28.

For more information about MVP, click here.