About a year ago the White House announced a plan to make medical coverage more personalized. Last week, President Obama revealed the details of the research projects that will be part of the initiative.



One of them is lead by Jack Gilbert who is a group leader for Microbial Ecology at the Argonne National Laboratory in suburban Lemont, and a University of Chicago professor. He and his team will follow up on preliminary research that shows people’s microbiomes — the bacteria in their bodies — can affect how susceptible they are to post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety.

He’ll be working with African American communities on Chicago’s South Side, in Baltimore, and in other cities as part of the project.