There’s a good reason why national health care leaders call upon Marshfield Clinic experts when it comes to using genetics to study and improve human health.
The Clinic’s Personalized Medicine Research Project (PMRP), launched in 2002, was a population-based biobank consisting of genetic information linked to long-term electronic health records (EHR) from over 20,000 Marshfield Clinic patients. PMRP was recognized as one of the earliest and most useful biobanks in the U.S.
Elisha Stefanski, a senior research associate in Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation's Integrated Research and Development Laboratory, removes genetic samples from a freezer. Marshfield Clinic aims to expand its biobank from 20,000 patients to 100,000 patients.
Now it’s about to grow five times larger.
Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation and Center for Human Genetics are preparing to recruit an additional 80,000 new patients to support President Barack Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative in an effort to apply genomic discoveries to human health.
“Our future goal is to use precision medicine to prevent and treat certain cancers and other diseases,” said Murray Brilliant, Ph.D., director, Center for Human Genetics. “These efforts have potential to significantly improve health care outcomes for Marshfield Clinic patients.”
One million good reasons
Obama announced his Precision Medicine Initiative Jan. 30 that will allow providers to tailor health care to an individual’s precise genetic profile. Brilliant was invited by National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins for the White House announcement.
Precision Medicine Initiative objectives include:
- Accelerating biomedical discoveries.
- Investing in the design and testing of effective, tailored treatments for cancer.
- Creation of a voluntary national research cohort of 1 million people.
National effort for a personal prognosis
The concept of tailoring health care to an individual’s precise genetic make-up is known as personalized or precision medicine. Genetic information is not routinely available so current medical practice cannot take into account how this variation affects health.
Advances in science and medicine now make it possible to incorporate precision medicine into everyday clinical practice. Studies using PMRP data have uncovered the genetic basis of many disorders.
Collins has cited the Clinic’s PMRP as an example of the type of research this initiative wishes to expand to at least one million people nationwide.
Recruitment efforts for “One in a Million” will be tailored to allow clinically actionable results to be returned to participating patients. Variants identified by researchers will be placed in the participant’s EHR for possible medical intervention.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for Marshfield Clinic to shape the future of medicine through implementation of precision medicine and to improve the standard of care,” Brilliant said.
The Clinic has already used precision medicine to benefit patients. In an ongoing study, 750 Marshfield Clinic patients were tested for their predicted response to simvastatin, clopidogrel and warfarin, drugs used to prevent or treat heart attack and stroke.
Results from these tests are combined with specific clinical recommendations. By tailoring these medications and dosages to each individual, it’s now possible to achieve better outcomes and fewer side effects.