But building a safe and secure system to store people’s unique genomic profiles is not a simple task. A new project out of Memorial University in St. John’s is consulting the public on how to store genomic information while still respecting people’s rights. Holly Etchegary, a lead researcher on the e-genomics project at Memorial University of Newfoundland, said patients may react differently to many medications depending on variations in their genome. Etchegary said the e-genomics project will start with uses that have been proven clinically effective, likely by applying genomic sequencing to pharmacogenomics, or drug therapy decisions. “Our initial goal is to start there in a place where we know has some clinical utility, and hopefully it really will make a difference to some of our patients,” Etchegary said.

Source: thestar October 07, 2018 23:26 UTC