One of the nation’s largest acute care pediatric hospitals has committed an eight-figure sum to expand its personalized medicine initiative. The study of more than 100 urologists, published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Kidney Cancer, suggested a majority would use a test distributed by Rosetta Genomics to determine the difference between a benign renal oncocytoma and a renal cell carcinoma, a cancerous malignancy. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles will spend $50 million over the next five years in order to make health care delivery for children more personalized and effective. The hospital’s expanded Center for Personalized Medicine will also be integrated into its department of pathology and laboratory medicine. “In the near future, a newborn’s genome will be sequenced at birth (or even before), permitting clinicians to plan a lifetime of personalized, preventive health care that focuses on preventing, rather than reacting to, illness,” said Alexander R. Judkins, M.D., the executive director of CHLA’s Center for Personalized Medicine and head of the hospital’s pathology and laboratory medicine departments, in a statement. “When we look at our peers using personalized medicine for children, the area where CHLA will be in- vesting its efforts is in taking research outcomes […]
One of the nation’s largest acute care pediatric hospitals has committed an eight-figure sum to expand its personalized medicine initiative.
The study of more than 100 urologists, published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Kidney Cancer, suggested a majority would use a test distributed by Rosetta Genomics to determine the difference between a benign renal oncocytoma and a renal cell carcinoma, a cancerous malignancy. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles will spend $50 million over the next five years in order to make health care delivery for children more personalized and effective. The hospital’s expanded Center for Personalized Medicine will also be integrated into its department of pathology and laboratory medicine.
“In the near future, a newborn’s genome will be sequenced at birth (or even before), permitting clinicians to plan a lifetime of personalized, preventive health care that focuses on preventing, rather than reacting to, illness,” said Alexander R. Judkins, M.D., the executive director of CHLA’s Center for Personalized Medicine and head of the hospital’s pathology and laboratory medicine departments, in a statement. “When we look at our peers using personalized medicine for children, the area where CHLA will be in- vesting its efforts is in taking research outcomes and innovations and translating them into improvements in bedside care—an area where we already excel. This is where the real impact for children will be.”
The center will focus initially on pediatric cancers, as well as inherited and infectious diseases. It recently developed a test that identifies all changes related to the RB1 gene, which is linked to retinoblastoma, a rare form of eye cancer that is diagnosed in about 200 to 300 children a year nationwide. The hospital treats about 20 percent of all retinoblastoma patients in the U.S.
“This is just one example of bench-to-bedside translational research involving pediatric cancer genomics already underway at CHLA,” Judkins said. “Our expansion will provide us with the opportunity to study genomic features of all new and recurrent cancers treated at CHLA.”
Officials said the hospital will eventually expand its genomic research to seek genetic links to epilepsy, autism, neurocognitive disorders, congenital heart disease, and cleft palates. In addition to the sum being spent by the hospital, it will also launch a philanthropic campaign to raise an additional $50 million to finance the translation of research data into new modes of health care delivery.
Takeaway: Children’s Hospital Los Angeles believes genomic laboratory advances are where its future lies.
