Thanks to a collaboration with the Regeneron Genetics Center, the Mount Sinai Health System is developing a large-scale genetic sequencing project, seeking the participation of one million people.
The Mount Sinai Health System and the Icahn School of Medicine announced the launch of a groundbreaking research project on the sequencing of the human genome. The project entitled Mount Sinai Million Health Discoveries Program, will have the support of Regeneron Genetics Center, a leading biotechnology company.
The goal of the Mount Sinai Million Health Discoveries Program is, as its name indicates, to enroll one million patients over the next five years to carry out one of the largest projects of its kind. In addition to the number of patients, they seek the ethnic diversity of the participants to advance research and new precision medicine techniques.
In this sense, such an extensive data set could help researchers assess the potential of new genetic-based precision medicine approaches and thus support the creation of new therapies and insights.
“For decades, we expected genetics to provide clinicians with blueprints for each patient's unique health care needs. While genetics has proven to be a powerful tool in understanding rare disorders, we don't yet have enough data to know how effective it may be in helping to treat and diagnose most patients. A big reason for this is that most gene sequencing studies are not designed for this,” said Dr. Alexander W. Charney, associate professor of psychiatry and genetics and genomic sciences at Icahn Mount Sinai and leader of the project.
Patients who are part of the project are required to consent to DNA sequencing and analysis and then link their sequence data to anonymous versions of their electronic medical records. However, patient recruitment may not be a problem for Mount Sinai as its health system sees around 4 million patients each year, each with their electronic medical record.
Learn more about this project at the following link:
https://icahn.mssm.edu/research/ipm/programs/mount-sinai-million
