Table 1 Argued potential benefits from the Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization’s biobank project
Beneficiary | Short-term benefits | Long-term benefits |
|---|---|---|
Individual research subjects | Free additional health examinations in addition to those given by the national health-checkup program | Individual health will be years-long watched over with loving eyes by the researchers |
Receiving individual results of the proven baseline health examinations | Discovered clinically-assessed individual genetic risk information as well as incidental findings will be returned | |
Specialist referral services | ||
Local communities in the quake-hit regions | Deployment of young researcher-physicians for clinical services in three shifts of four months each in quake-hit areas | Repairment of the damaged local healthcare system |
Mitigation of brain drain | Solving a shortage of medical resources | |
Promotion of local investment and employment | Improvement of the Tohoku’s long-standing substandard healthcare infrastructure | |
Clustering healthcare industries | ||
Boosting the general local economy | ||
Attracting young people and medical professionals to move into the region | ||
Access to epidemiological findings on quake-/stress-induced diseases | ||
National population | None | Economic recovery |
Promotion of medical innovations | ||
Creation of a model of a new healthcare system combined with the healthcare IT network | ||
| Â | Â | Materialization of personalized medicine and prevention through a huge human genetic database and results of the cohort study |