Mayo Clinic partners with ASU to help solve Latino health issues

A recent article in Hispanically Speaking News highlighted Mayo Clinic’s collaboration with Arizona State University and Mountain Park Health Center to create the Sangre por Salud Biobank, which will support studies in areas of special concern to the Latino population, such as obesity, metabolism and diabetes.

“We want to do everything we can to involve the Latino population in biomedical research so we can focus on their specific health issues and better represent an accurate sampling in our biobank,” said Dr. Lawrence Mandarino, Mayo Clinic Biobank director in Arizona.

All types of medical studies will take place at the biobank, but it will focus mostly on projects related to cardiometabolic risk and obesity, which is the largest health burden to the Latino population.

Mayo’s Biobank began at its Minnesota campus in 2009. Last year, a Florida component was also added, with an enrollment goal of 5,000. Nationally, the goal is to have 50,000 participants by 2016, including 5,000 from the Mayo Clinic Health System.