Public release date: 4-Sep-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Kristen Bole kristen.bole@ucsf.edu 415-502-6397 University of California - San Francisco

UC San Francisco will receive $4.5 million over the next five years for a pilot project to assess whether large-scale gene sequencing aimed at detecting disorders and conditions can and should become a routine part of newborn testing.

The study is one of four projects launched today by the National Institutes of Health to identify the accuracy and feasibility of providing genetic sequencing as part of, or instead of, the current newborn screening that relies on biochemical changes in the blood. It also will assess what additional information would be useful to have at birth and the ethics and public interest in having such tests performed.

Genomic sequencing has the potential to diagnose a vast array of disorders and conditions at the very start of life, said Alan E. Guttmacher, MD, director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (ICHD), which is jointly funding the studies. But the ability to decipher an individuals genetic code rapidly also brings with it a host of clinical and ethical issues, which is why it is important that this program explores the trio of technical, clinical, and ethical aspects of genomics research in the newborn period.

The pilots are a core element of the emerging field of precision medicine, which aims to harness vast amounts of genetic and health data to create predictive, preventive and precise care for patients on an international scale. Doing so has the potential to transform medicine, but there are many logistical and ethical hurdles to resolve along the way.

The UCSF team, which also includes bioinformatics experts at UC Berkeley and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, will study the potential of sequencing the exome the roughly 2 percent of DNA that represents genes which code for proteins as a method of newborn screening. The research will look at the exomes potential for identifying disorders that California currently includes in the newborn screen, as well as those that are not currently screened for, but for which newborns may benefit if detection can occur early in life.

The UCSF research will examine the issue from three vantage points. The first will be a partnership with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to test blood drops previously collected from 1,400 children statewide who received standard newborn screening, to determine whether exome sequencing would be more accurate and also whether it provides insights that could lead to improved newborn screening, care and treatment.

My hope is that this will give us solid information on the specificity of gene testing, versus standard biochemical testing, for the disorders we are already screening for, said Robert Nussbaum, MD, who leads the UCSF Division of Medical Genetics and holds the Holly Smith Distinguished Professorship in Science and Medicine at UCSF. In addition, some of the disorders we pick up during screening are chemical abnormalities, but we dont know whether they will actually cause problems for the child. Wed like to know whether there is something in the childrens genes that determines whether these abnormalities actually will cause disease.

The second project will offer genetic testing to patients in a UCSF immune system disorders clinic run by Jennifer Puck, MD, a pediatrician in the UCSF Benioff Childrens Hospital whose research laboratory pioneered the current newborn test for Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID). Parents will be asked to give informed consent for this arm of the project.

Originally posted here:
UCSF receives $4.5M to study value of gene sequencing in newborns

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