Mayo Clinic, MIT, Harvard join forces on Medical Genome Initiative

A consortium of eight health care and research organizations in the U.S. and Canada, including the Mayo Clinic and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard announced the launch of the Medical Genome Initiative.

The initiative will work to expand access to clinical whole genome sequencing (cWGS) for the diagnosis of genetic diseases, with a focus on the publication of common laboratory and clinical best practices for the application of cWGS.

Clinical whole genome sequencing is the laboratory process of sequencing all 3 billion base pairs in the human genome to identify a disease-causing mutation, and has the potential to reduce the number of unresolved pediatric rare genetic disease cases--especially when utilized as a first-tier clinical test.

Evidence indicates early utilization of cWGS could deliver precise molecular diagnosis to enable change in medical management, thus reducing the number of unresolved, complex, costly and chronic genetic disease cases, especially for newborns and children.

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