On Jun. 21, 2017, McDonnell Genome Institute announced it had received a $10 million from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to sequence the DNA of people from diverse ethnic backgrounds, in an effort to identify the genetic roots of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other lung disorders.

Other genome sequencing centers involved in the program include the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Illumina, Macrogen, the New York Genome Center and Northwest Genomics Center.