Full-Genome Sequencing Center Launched for Research, Diagnostic, Clinical Applications

Eleven of the United States’ private and academic medical centers form the foundation of New York Genome Center (NYGC), with support from the city of New York as well as private companies and foundations. Together, the partner institutions reach well over five million patients and are known as leaders in a variety of medical specialties where gene-based medicine will have a major impact in the coming years.

NYGC’s collaborating academic medical centers and research universities include Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA), Columbia University (New York, NY, USA), Cornell University/Weill Cornell Medical College University (New York, NY, USA), Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center University (New York, NY, USA), Mount Sinai Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (New York, NY, USA), New York University (NYU) School of Medicine University (New York, NY, USA), North Shore-LIJ Health System University (Great Neck, NY, USA), Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, ME, USA), Rockefeller University (New York, NY, USA), and Stony Brook University (Stony Brook, NY, USA). The Hospital for Special Surgery (New York, NY, USA) is an associate founding member.

Putting aside conventional competitiveness among US and internationally recognized leaders in research and medicine, these leading medical institutions, along with technology and pharmaceutical innovators, have come together behind NYGC with the aim of considerably accelerating progress toward a new era of genomic research and having a profound impact on patient care and clinical outcomes in the near future, according to the Center’s spokespersons.

“The commitment of 11 leading New York research and healthcare centers to form the New York Genome Center shows the prominent role that genomics will play in the future of medical research and clinical care,” said Eric D. Green, MD, PhD, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the US National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD, USA). “The new center is poised to help make genomic medicine a reality.”

An independent, nonprofit consortium, NYGC will establish one of the largest genomics facilities in North America. The Center will begin operations as early as spring 2012. Its 11,148-square-meter facility will be located in Manhattan.

Through this collaboration, scientists and physicians from member institutions will share diverse clinical and genomic data on a scale not yet realized in order to discover the molecular underpinnings of disease, identify and validate biomarkers, and accelerate development of novel diagnostics and targeted therapeutics to improve clinical care.

That these institutions serve one of the most diverse populations in the world--the “melting pot” that is New York City--typifies the ability for this collaboration to build a data set that is representative of the national and global population. The combined scientific and clinical breadth of the institutions, great diversity of the patient populations they represent, access to health outcomes data, and the potential combined scale of basic and clinical research made possible through NYGC will make it unique among genomics centers, according to NYGC spokespersons. The collaborations within the biomedical ecosystem, including technology, pharmaceutical, and diagnostic companies will provide researchers with fast translation of findings.

“The New York Genome Center will make it possible to share extraordinarily rich and diverse data on an unprecedented scale, and allow us to support the world’s premier research and medical institutions, as well as their diagnostic and pharmaceutical partners,” said Nancy J. Kelley, JD, MPP, founding executive director of the New York Genome Center. “NYGC will be a powerful engine for breakthrough genomic science, as well as for commercial development, in the New York region.”

Genomics are in fact already a significant growth factor in the economy, representing over USD 7 billion industry. By 2025, the economic impact associated with commercial spin-off activities of NYGC is expected to represent the largest component of the total impact associated with the Center.

NYGC is working with commercial and technology collaborators, including Illumina (San Diego, CA, USA), a developer, manufacturer, and marketer of life-science tools and integrated systems for the analysis of genetic variation and function, and Roche, a global healthcare company. “The launch of the New York Genome Center represents an exceptional step forward in gaining a deeper understanding of the clinical relevance of genetics and ultimately improving human health,” said Jay Flatley, president and CEO of Illumina. “Illumina and NYGC have a shared vision, and we’re confident Illumina’s innovative technologies will play a major role in enabling the facility’s success in achieving its goals.”

The technology that launched the biomedical revolution and made the Human Genome Project possible--DNA sequencing--is once again on the cusp of transforming biomedical research and healthcare. While the decade following the sequencing of the human genome has contributed to the fundamental knowledge of biology and disease, the next 10 years will be marked by a transition to clinical care based on genomic data. Advancements being made in DNA sequencing technology are leading to a transformation into the practice of medicine. This revolution is unfolding in a variety of ways. The cost and duration of genomic sequencing is rapidly dropping, the US government is making a strong commitment to support full implementation of electronic health records, and the number of targeted drugs and companion diagnostics entering clinical practice continues to rise.

“Completion of the human genome project 10 years ago, and the recent breathtaking technological advances in DNA sequencing and computer hardware provide an unparalleled opportunity to advance basic medical science, drug discovery, and healthcare delivery,” said Thomas Maniatis, PhD, chair of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Columbia University, one of the founding institutions. “The New York Genome Center will provide the opportunity for basic scientists and physicians from extraordinary universities, research institutions and hospitals to work together to transform the complexity of genomic information into an understanding and treatment of human diseases.”

Opening in spring 2012, NYGC expects to serve as a unique and cutting-edge interdisciplinary resource for biomedical leaders. Consistent access to large-scale but cost-effective gene sequencing, data mining, and leading edge instrumentation are important elements of the plans. NYGC will offer an initial technology platform of next-generation sequencers and will scale up to be operational within a year. Its facility will house laboratory space for principal investigators, sequencing instrumentation, robotics for high-throughput library preparation, information technology (IT) storage hardware for buffering and final data storage, bioinformatics, and computational capabilities.

NYGC staff will be able to sequence full human genomes and fulfill tailored sequencing requirements. On-staff experts will be able to take a biologic sample and provide a full clinical interpretation. In addition to clinical diagnostic and research work, NYGC services will support investigator research projects, collaborative work with academic institutions, and industrial contract work.

NYGC hopes to interface with computational capabilities at academic and medical institutions in order to allow seamless collaboration among institutions and scientists. Collaborative training programs are also planned to expand recruitment and development of talented genomics and bioinformatics researchers and clinicians in the New York area.

Related Links:
New York Genome Center
Illumina