BCM-HGSC in the News
NIH grant funds coordinating center on aging research - (Tuesday, August 27, 2024)
The National Institutes of Health will award up to $4 million over five years to a consortium including Baylor College of Medicine, the Tulane National Primate Research Center and the California National Primate Research Center to establish a coordinating center for research on aging. This award underscores the leadership of these three organizations in advancing understanding of aging across primate species, information that could unlock new ways to improve human health and longevity.
Led by Dr. Jay Rappaport, director of the Tulane National Primate Research Center, Dr. Jeffrey Rogers of Baylor College of Medicine, and Dr. John Morrison of University of California at Davis, the aging coordinating center will bring together results from aging-related research across humans and nonhuman primates. The Tulane primate center will serve as the project lead.
“We at Baylor College of Medicine are excited to play this important role in advancing knowledge of the processes that influence healthy aging and lifespan,” said Rogers, associate professor in the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor. “Nonhuman primates provide a natural experiment in lifespan extension. The comparisons among species that this program is designed to support will increase our understanding of some basic elements of aging. In that way we will generate new insights that we hope will translate into improved health and well-being in humans.”
Recent Advances in Sequencing Analysis Tools - (Monday, May 6, 2024)
SEQAnswers, an online community for next-generation sequencing, takes a look at the recent advancements in sequencing analysis spearheaded by Dr. Fritz Sedlazeck and his team of bioinformaticians at the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center. The article by SEQAnswers editor Benjamin Atha surveys influential analysis tools such as Sniffles and DRAGEN, and introduces the Twist Alliance Dark Genes Panel, a product of a collaboration by HGSC with Twist Bioscience and PacBio to sequence the so-called "dark regions" of the genome.
Allelica to provide multi-ancestry polygenic risk score to Baylor College of Medicine for clinical implementation - (Tuesday, March 19, 2024)
Baylor College of Medicine and Allelica, a life sciences company that develops and commercializes clinical genetic tests for healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, have announced a strategic collaboration to integrate clinical, multi-ancestry polygenic risk score (PRS) testing into BCM's extensive patient services portfolio.
"PRS are of high interest to our clinical partners. We've been working closely with Allelica to ensure a robust analytical framework that takes into account the diversity of our patient population," said Dr. Eric Venner, Associate Professor and Director of Clinical Informatics at the BCM Human Genome Sequencing Center.
275 Million New Genetic Variants Identified in NIH Precision Medicine Data - (Monday, February 19, 2024)
Researchers have discovered more than 275 million previously unreported genetic variants, identified from data shared by nearly 250,000 participants of the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program. The findings are detailed in Nature.
In a companion study published in Communications Biology, a research team led by Baylor College of Medicine reviewed the frequency of genes and variants recommended by the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics across different genetic ancestry groups in the All of Us dataset. These genes and variants mirror those in the program’s Hereditary Disease Risk research results offered to participants. The authors found significant variability in the frequency of variants associated with disease risk between different genetic ancestry groups and compared with other large genomic datasets.
TRISH to study spaceflight effects on genome and nervous system on Axiom Space's Ax-3 Mission - (Tuesday, November 28, 2023)
The Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) will conduct a suite of human health and performance research projects during Axiom Space’s upcoming Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) to the International Space Station (ISS), scheduled to launch in 2024. TRISH is a consortium led by Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Space Medicine with partners California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The TRISH EXPAND biomedical research projects for Ax-3 includes Space Omics + BioBank, which gathers biological specimens from astronauts before and after their mission to assess the effects of spaceflight on the human body at the genomic level.
Baylor College of Medicine recognizes research excellence with DeBakey Awards - (Wednesday, September 20, 2023)
Six Baylor College of Medicine faculty members were selected as recipients of the 2023 Michael E. DeBakey Excellence in Research Award. Dr. Fritz Sedlazeck and Dr. Jeffrey Rogers were among those recognized for their work during the Sept. 18 ceremony at Baylor.
Sedlazeck’s research focuses on the understanding of genome instability and complex variations and their impact on evolution and disease. Rogers is an internationally recognized expert in the genetics and genomics of nonhuman primates.
Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital launch a new clinical genomic sequencing program to help patients with an undiagnosed condition - (Friday, August 25, 2023)
About 35% of severe developmental childhood genetic diseases have a known disease-causing gene mutation. Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital researchers Dr. Hugo J. Bellen, Dr. Richard Gibbs and Dr. Katherine Y. King have launched a new genomic sequencing initiative to identify the genetic mutations and the underlying mechanisms responsible for the remaining two-thirds of these pediatric conditions.
This transformational project is made possible by a two-year grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and is an extension of national collaborative initiatives such as the National Institutes of Health’s Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN) and the Genomics Research to Elucidate the Genetic of Rare Diseases programs (GREGoR).
Your cells don’t have the genome you were born with. Project aims to chart impact of new mutations - (Tuesday, August 15, 2023)
Science takes a look at Somatic Mosaicism Across Human Tissues (SMaHT), an ambitious National Institutes of Health (NIH) project to map genomic diversity, and speaks with Dr. Harsha Doddapaneni who helps lead one of the SMaHT sequencing groups at the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center (BCM-HGSC).
Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center adopts Olink® Explore HT proteomics platform - (Tuesday, August 8, 2023)
The Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center is incorporating the Olink Explore HT proteomics platform into its portfolio of world-class multiomics. The addition of Olink proteomic technology enables a more thorough understanding of the intricate connections between genes, proteins, and diseases that will lead to improved diagnostics, targeted therapies and the advancement of precision and personalized medicine.
NIH Somatic Variant Detection Program to Develop Novel Assays, Computational Tools - (Friday, July 21, 2023)
GenomeWeb takes a look at the Somatic Mosaicism across Human Tissues (SMaHT) program, a National Institutes of Health Common Fund project to accelerate research on the impact of somatic mosiacism on human development, aging and disease. SMaHT researchers, including HGSC's Dr. Fritz Sedlazeck, weigh in on the challenges and benefits of this groundbreaking program.