Mount Sinai, Uniformed Services University Join Forces to Predict and Prevent Diseases Before They Start

[Mij]

Multidisciplinary study uses blood samples to identify disease years early, including cancers, heart disease, and autoimmune disorders

New York, NY(March 02, 2026)

What if doctors could tell you a disease was coming years before you felt a single symptom—and stop it in its tracks? That is the goal of a sweeping new research initiative launched by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in collaboration with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine (HJF).

The project, called “ORIGIN: Omics to Characterize Preclinical Stages of Non-Infectious Diseases,” brings together 10 specialties across Mount Sinai Health System in an ambitious multidisciplinary disease-prevention study.

The study will analyze stored blood samples from up to 13,000 active-duty U.S. service members, drawn years before any diagnosis, using advanced molecular “omics” tools such as proteomics, exposomics, metabolomics, genomics, and more. By identifying risk factors and early warning signals, ORIGIN aims to lay the groundwork for predicting and ultimately preventing some of today’s most common and devastating diseases.

 

[Creekside]

That sounds useful. I'd been thinking that our medical records--and those of our parents and relatives--could warn us about preventable diseases. If your father developed bunions, your doctor could recommend exams starting at age whatever, and spacers or whatever would prevent development. For this, a little bit of AI processing time could produce major savings for the patient and the medical system, and prevent economic losses due to preventable health problems.