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Science Saturday: A big step forward, bringing DNA sequencing data to routine patient care
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In 2020, the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine set out to create a library of genomic sequencing data of 100,000 consented Mayo Clinic participants by the end of 2024 to advance research and improve patient care. The genomic sequencing study is a year ahead of the plan — reaching over 71,000 participants.
"This is one of the largest population health studies of its kind," says Konstantinos Lazaridis, M.D., the Carlson and Nelson Endowed Executive Director for Mayo Clinic's Center for Individualized Medicine and principal investigator of the Tapestry study. "We are advancing the idea of bringing genomic sequencing to routine patient care."
Dr. Lazaridis notes that creating a DNA library can help physicians reveal predispositions to health problems and enable earlier use of preventive measures throughout a person's life span.
Mayo collaborated with Helix, a population genomics company, to do the sequencing. Their comprehensive DNA test uses Next Generation Sequencing technology to screen the exome for genetic variants that can significantly increase the risk for disease. It reads all 20,000 genes that code for proteins, plus hundreds of thousands of regions outside the protein-coding regions known to be informative and have the most effect on a person's health.
For the initial part of the study, participants receive screening results for three highly actionable hereditary conditions that often go unrecognized. They include familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), hereditary breast and ovarian cancer (BRCA1 and BRCA2), and Lynch syndrome, a form of hereditary colorectal cancer.
Participants' results are returned over time to them and their Mayo Clinic provider, becoming a part of their electronic health record. Dr. Lazaridis notes that access to these results allows Mayo researchers to evaluate the benefits of sequencing and the short- and long-term effect on health-related outcomes, utilization and physician acceptance.
"Several people affected by these conditions are unaware they are at risk, but genetic screening can lead to diagnoses for these people and their families," explains Dr. Lazaridis.
Read the rest of the article on the Center for Individualized Medicine blog.
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Other Mayo Clinic medical research websites:
- Research at Mayo Clinic
- Discovery’s Edge
- Mayo Clinic Laboratories
- Center for Individualized Medicine
- Center for Regenerative Biotherapeutics
- Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery
- Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center
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