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‘Human Project’ study will ask 10,000 to share life’s data

In this Thursday, June 15, 2017, photo, people walk inside the Oculus, the new transit station at the World Trade Center in New York. Researchers are gearing up to start recruiting 10,000 New Yorkers early next year for a study so sweeping it’s called “The Human Project.” They’ll be asked to share a trove of personal information, from cellphone locations and credit-card swipes to blood samples and life-changing events. For 20 years. The idea is to channel different data streams into a river of insight on health, aging, education and many other aspects of human life. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
In this Thursday, June 15, 2017, photo, people walk inside the Oculus, the new transit station at the World Trade Center in New York. Researchers are gearing up to start recruiting 10,000 New Yorkers early next year for a study so sweeping it’s called “The Human Project.” They’ll be asked to share a trove of personal information, from cellphone locations and credit-card swipes to blood samples and life-changing events. For 20 years. The idea is to channel different data streams into a river of insight on health, aging, education and many other aspects of human life. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II) In this Thursday, June 15, 2017, photo, people walk inside the Oculus, the new transit station at the World Trade Center in New York. Researchers are gearing up to start recruiting 10,000 New Yorkers early next year for a study so sweeping it’s called “The Human Project.” They’ll be asked to share a trove of personal information, from cellphone locations and credit-card swipes to blood samples and life-changing events. For 20 years. The idea is to channel different data streams into a river of insight on health, aging, education and many other aspects of human life. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

By Associated Press 4 min read

NEW YORK (AP) – Wanted: 10,000 New Yorkers interested in advancing science by sharing a trove of personal information, from cellphone locations and credit-card swipes to blood samples and life-changing events. For 20 years.

Researchers are gearing up to start recruiting participants from across the city next year for a study so sweeping it’s called “The Human Project .” It aims to channel different data streams into a river of insight on health, aging, education and many other aspects of human life.

“That’s what we’re all about: putting the holistic picture together,” says project director Dr. Paul Glimcher, a New York University neural science, economics and psychology professor.

There have been other “big data” health studies, and the National Institutes of Health plans to start full-scale recruitment as soon as this fall for a million-person project intended to foster individualized treatment.

But the $15 million-a-year Human Project is breaking ground with the scope of individual data it plans to collect simultaneously, says Dr. Vasant Dhar, editor-in-chief of the journal Big Data, which published a 2015 paper about the project.