BCM-HGSC in the News
The Genomics Revolution - (Tuesday, September 15, 2015)
In this article from the Texas Medical Center News website, Dr. Richard Gibbs, director of BCM-HGSC, discusses the advances in genomics research and the opportunities for collaboration between TMC member institutions through the TMC Genomics Institute.
Baylor genome sequencing experts tapped for national effort incorporating genome information, electronic medical records - (Thursday, September 3, 2015)
HGSC has received an $8.39 million, four-year grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute to help support a large research effort that seeks to incorporate DNA sequence information into electronic medical records.
The effort, called the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) network, focuses on understanding the genomic basis of disease and tailoring medical care to individual patients based on their genomic differences. The Human Genome Sequencing Center will serve as one of two genome sequencing and genotyping facilities and will perform DNA sequence generation on 12,500 patients.
Mapping cancer's genome - (Thursday, August 6, 2015)
HGSC is a member of The Cancer Genome Atlas project, an ambitious government-funded consortium created to identify cancer-causing genes. The Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center, which conducted all tissue banking for the samples, provided this update in its 2015 annual report, which highlights the work that led to sequencing tumors of the pancreas, colon, kidney, breast and bladder.
› Read the story in the Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center Annual Report
A miracle in a medical odyssey - (Sunday, June 28, 2015)
Next-generation sequencing performed at HGSC zeroed in on the gene that caused a genetic disorder for twins Noah and Alexis Beery, enabling physicians to hone their treatment. In this update published in BCM's Momentum blog, Retta Beery recalls the medical odyssey of her twin children and the life-changing results of whole genome sequencing.
Waging war on Australia's nastiest parasite: scientists map blowfly genome - (Thursday, June 25, 2015)
In partnership with HGSC, researchers at the University of Melbourne have decoded the genome of the Australian sheep blowfly, Lucilia cuprina, adding ammunition to the battle against one of that nation's most insidious pests.
Around 2,000 genes not seen before in any other organism were discovered. These genes can now be investigated as potential drug and vaccine targets. This blowfly is responsible for over $200 million in losses to Australia's sheep industry each year from flystrike.
HGSC and DNAnexus collaborate to develop, deploy comprehensive clinical whole genome analysis platform - (Sunday, June 21, 2015)
DNAnexus and the Human Genome Sequencing Center will co-develop HgV, the next generation of the HGSC's Mercury solutions pipeline. HgV is a comprehensive framework for large-scale high-throughput whole genome sequence analysis in the settings of precision medicine research and clinical applications.
› Read press release from DNAnexus
Precision medicine: Baylor partners with Mayo Clinic to study drug-gene safety - (Thursday, May 14, 2015)
Baylor‘s Human Genome Sequencing Center will help Mayo Clinic sequence the DNA of Mayo biobank members for 69 different genes that can influence how patients’ metabolize or react to different drugs.
The goal is to determine which “pharmacogenomic” findings are relevant to the individual patient and to insert that information into their medical records – providing an “early warning system” to prevent adverse drug reactions or ineffective treatments.
› Read BCM's Momentum blog story
› Read news release from Mayo Clinic
Looking for a shift could provide molecular diagnosis in rare disease - (Wednesday, April 15, 2015)
“Frame shift” – the insertion of genetic material that interrupts the recipe for a particular protein -- could explain many cases of a rare disorder called Robinow syndrome for which there is currently no molecular explanation, said an international consortium of researchers led by those from Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears online in the journal American Journal of Human Genetics.
When a team led by Drs. Claudia M.B. Carvalho and James Lupski at Baylor in collaboration with Dr. Han G. Brunner of Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, The Netherlands began looking at more patients, they sequenced the exomes of many in the Human Genome Sequencing Center and found mutations in one copy of a gene called DVL1 in eight subjects.
› Read full announcement in BCM news
› Read article in BCM's "From the Labs" blog
› Read article in The American Journal of Human Genetics
Evolution of marine mammals to water converges in some genes - (Monday, February 16, 2015)
When marine mammals such as whales, dolphins, manatees and walruses moved from land to water, a series of physical abilities –– limbs adapted for swimming, less dense bones that make them more buoyant and a large store of oxygen relative to their body size – made it possible. Yet these animals made the transition from land to water millions of years apart.
In a report that appears online in the journal Nature Genetics, an international consortium of researchers that includes those at Baylor College of Medicine looked at the genomes of these four marine mammals and compared them to their closest land kin.
Genetic factors at play in cerebral palsy - (Wednesday, February 11, 2015)
An international research collaboration that included the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center has demonstrated a larger than expected role of genes in the development of cerebral palsy.
It has long been believed that cerebral palsy is the result of a lack of oxygen for a child during birth; however, the team at the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor, in collaboration with clinicians based at the University of Adelaide, Australia, have found at least 14 percent of patients in a group of cerebral palsy cases, are likely caused by a genetic mutation.
› Read full announcement in BCM news
› Read article in the Nature journal Molecular Psychiatry