05
June
2015
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03:35 AM
America/Chicago

Your Next Prescription Could Be a Genome Sequence

At Advances in Genome Biology and Technology, a conference for genomic scientists held earlier this year, one speaker told attendees that the use of genome sequencing to improve patient care is no longer a far-off goal - it's happening today.

While you won't encounter genome sequencing on an average visit to the ER, there are certain clinical areas where this technology has indeed become routine: cancer, pediatric care, the diagnosis and treatment of ultra rare diseases and a few others.

The speaker who talked about the infant with liver failure - Stephen Kingsmore from Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo. - noted, unsurprisingly, that waiting until a patient is in crisis to do the genome sequencing is not ideal. For optimal care, he suggested it would be better to sequence a person's genome at birth so that information could be readily available when a problem does arise.

Read more via Huffington Post