MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—CompleteGenomics Inc. and Inova Health System announced in September thatthey will sequence 1,500 genomes from 500 babies and their parents.The goal of this project is to identify prognostic, diagnostic andtherapeutic targets for pre-term delivery and potentially otherobstetrics associated abnormalities.
The partnership is part of a pilotprogram with the Inova Translational Medicine Institute (ITMI), anot-for-profit research institute within the Inova Health System inFalls Church, Va., aimed at translating clinical research into actualcare programs using genomically driven patient care often referred toas personalized medicine.
"Complete Genomics is a naturalchoice as our sequencing partner for this new program," said JohnNiederhuber, CEO of the ITMI, in a statement. "We are confidentthat Complete Genomics can manage a large project of this typeefficiently and produce the consistent, high-quality sequencing datathat we need to be able to understand the subtle genetic changes thatcontribute to pre-term delivery."
"The Inova Translational MedicineInstitute is truly an innovator in the delivery of patient care,striving to not only understand the genomic makeup of patients, butalso to customize care to the individual to help prevent or managetheir diseases," added Dr. Clifford Reid, chairman, president andCEO of Complete Genomics. "We view this as an important opportunityfor our sequencing service to potentially help create new treatmentoptions for some of the smallest and sickest patients in thehospital."
The ITMI has already begun collectingDNA samples for Complete Genomics to begin sequencing. CompleteGenomics will begin delivering variant reports to ITMI as early asthe fourth quarter and expects to finish a large majority of the1,500 genomes in the first quarter of 2012.
These results will detail how thegenomes of pre-term delivery babies from Inova Fairfax Hospital'sJoint Commission certified Neonatal Intensive Care Unit compare withreference genomes. They will include information about the SNPs,insertions/deletions, copy number variations and structuralvariations included in each DNA sample, together with the readalignments supporting those calls, coverage information and qualityscores. In addition to sequence-based data, the ITMI will alsogenerate epigenomic, expression and micro RNA data on each sample.Data from Inova Health System's electronic medical record systemwill support the ITMI's outcomes-based research.
Complete Genomics is a human genomesequencing company. Its Complete Genomics Analysis Platform combinesthe company's proprietary human genome sequencing technology withadvanced informatics and data management software.
Inova Health System is a not-for-profithealth care system based in Northern Virginia that consists ofhospitals and other health services, including emergency- andurgent-care centers, home care, nursing homes, mental health andblood donor services, and wellness classes. Governed by a voluntaryboard of community members, Inova's mission is to improve thehealth of the diverse community it serves through excellence inpatient care, education and research.
Established in 2010 as a researchorganization, the ITMI is part of the Inova Health System. The ITMI'smission is to translate new knowledge from genomics and the molecularsciences into value-added interventions and strategies that enableInova's diverse physician community to deliver state-of-the artpatient care and disease risk reduction to its broad patient base.
