IDEO is a diverse, longitudinal cohort built to study how obesity and ancestry shape metabolic health. Each participant undergoes detailed metabolic phenotyping, paired where possible with adipose tissue biopsy, so clinical measures can be mapped directly onto molecular biology.

By deliberately enrolling across ancestry, IDEO lets us ask whether the pathways linking adipose dysfunction to insulin resistance hold across the populations most affected by metabolic disease. A subcohort of participants with HIV extends this work into a population where adipose dysfunction carries distinct clinical weight. Specimens are biobanked for transcriptomic, single-cell, and proteomic study, making the cohort both a discovery resource and a foundation for collaboration.