JEFFREY BROWN: In California, researchers are sifting through a huge collection of genetic data that could be a key to unlocking vital information for doctors and patients.

NewsHour correspondent Spencer Michels reports.

SPENCER MICHELS: Every year, 240,000 men in America learn that they have prostate cancer. Reggie Watkins, a retired parole officer and a patient at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., is one of them.

REGGIE WATKINS, Kaiser Patient: The first biopsy showed a slight cancer, slight amount of cancer. The second biopsy showed no cancer. I do think there's a genetic situation in my family. I'm not the only and my brother is not the only one in the family to have this problem.

SPENCER MICHELS: Until recently, Watkins' family history and his unique genetic makeup would have played a minor role, if any, in his medical care. But thanks in part to a massive, groundbreaking new study under way at Kaiser and the University of California, San Francisco, information gleaned from patients' genes may prove the key to identifying and treating a host of diseases.

NEIL RISCH, University of California, San Francisco: You know, you're not born to this world as a blank slate. You come into it with a certain genetic disposition.

SPENCER MICHELS: UCSF Professor Neil Risch, the lead genetic researcher, says that his project and others that compile vast amounts of genetic information are on the verge of revolutionizing medicine.

NEIL RISCH: We can actually look to see how the genes that somebody has and they have had since they were born interact with environmental factors that actually work together to either increase or decrease risk of, say, heart disease or cancer or a whole variety of things.

SPENCER MICHELS: More than 200,000 Kaiser patients in California over the last five years have volunteered saliva and blood samples for genetic analysis. Those samples are processed at this Kaiser lab using state-of- the-art robotic devices which extract the DNA.

CATHERINE SCHAEFER, Kaiser Permanente: This is the richest, largest, the most comprehensive data bank right now in the world.

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Researchers Aim to Unlock Genetic Data Goldmine for Vital Medical Information

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