Boston-based Partners Healthcare has received a $12.3 million federal grant to analyze genetic data from 25,000 blood samples over the course of four years and deliver the results to patients using an EHR system, according to a Boston Herald report.
With the potential to unravel genetic mysteries and predict risk of disease, genomics research is taking off in healthcare. However, ethical questions like how and when to alert patients to the information yielded from analysis of their genes will arise as genomic exploration continues.
Feedback from the process of delivering that genetic information will be analyzed to determine a number of things, including the psychological effect it has on patients to the economic strain it has on the healthcare system.
The samples will be pulled from the Partners Biobank, a facility in Cambridge, Mass., where thousands of patient blood samples are stored. Researchers will analyze these samples looking for genetic variants that can be linked to conditions such as mood disorders or hereditary cancers.
The NIH's eMERGE network, which studies how to effectively combine gene therapy research with EHRs, is also funding eight other facilities across the country to tackle related research. Partners' Brigham and Women's Hospital is one of two that will house and coordinate the project's DNA analysis. The other is Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.