Precision medicine depends on linking genomic data to clinical and health information at population scale. Korea's response is the National Integrated Bio Big Data Project (국가통합바이오빅데이터 구축사업), which grew from the initiative often described as the One Million Genomes Project. Junghwan Park contributed to its early policy design and groundwork in 2017–2022. He returned to the portfolio in 2026 as the ministry division director responsible for its oversight, giving his role a direct line from early planning to implementation.
The realized program is a large, multi-agency national undertaking led jointly by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. Participants consent to the collection and linkage of biological samples, clinical information, medical records, public data, participant-generated health information, whole-genome data, and other omics data. The first phase runs from 2024 to 2028 with a target of 772,000 participants; a second phase through 2032 aims to bring the cumulative total to one million.
Public reporting shows both the challenge and the acceleration. A National Assembly Budget Office review recorded 35,600 participants by June 2025 and identified delays in recruiting institutions and participants. By December 2025, reported recruitment had passed 100,000. In 2026, the program continues nationwide recruitment for general, severe and cancer, and rare-disease cohorts through participating hospitals and screening centers, supported by updated participation and consent procedures.
The next transition is from collection to use. The project has been preparing a secure bio-big-data platform and a staged first release to researchers, with the initial data opening planned for the fourth quarter of 2026 after platform completion and quality checks. Work also includes diagnostic-reference reports for rare-disease participants and planning for AI-supported research tools. These are implementation milestones and planned steps; they do not imply that the full first-phase dataset is already complete or open.
The significance lies in infrastructure and stewardship. Population-scale, consented bio data can support disease research, precision medicine, and development of drugs and medical technologies only if the data is representative, standardized, secure, and usable. Park's current responsibility is ministerial oversight within a program delivered by multiple ministries, agencies, hospitals, researchers, and participants.