R10K will include 10,000 patient samples
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -Dr. Jian Han, faculty investigator at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, has announced a major project that aims to help identify risks for 100 human diseases. The Repertoire 10K Project will sequence the immune repertoire of 10,000 individuals with specific disease histories and then seek to identify T and B cell receptor sequences associated with these specific diseases.
T and B cells are part of the body’s immune response system. According to Han, the immune repertoire is the sum total of T and B cells in a body at any given moment. “It is both a snapshot and an historical record of a person’s immune functions,” he said.
The goal of the project is to identify disease risk more quickly and accurately and provide improved diagnostic tools to physicians. According to Han, various types of cancer, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases and infectious diseases will be studied.
An international consortium, led by HudsonAlpha, will be established to carry out the study.
Han announced the project at the 98th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Immunologists recently held in San Francisco.
Media Contact: Beth Pugh
bpugh@hudsonalpha.org
256-327-0443
About HudsonAlpha: HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology is a nonprofit institute dedicated to innovating in the field of genomic technology and sciences across a spectrum of biological problems. Its mission is three-fold: sparking scientific discoveries that can impact human health and well-being; fostering biotech entrepreneurship; and encouraging the creation of a genomics-literate workforce and society. The HudsonAlpha biotechnology campus consists of 152 acres nestled within Cummings Research Park, the nation’s second largest research park. Designed to be a hothouse of biotech economic development, HudsonAlpha’s state-of-the-art facilities co-locate scientific researchers with entrepreneurs and educators. The relationships formed on the HudsonAlpha campus allow serendipity to yield results in medicine and agriculture. Since opening in 2008, HudsonAlpha, under the leadership of Dr. Richard M. Myers, a key collaborator on the Human Genome Project, has built a name for itself in genetics and genomics research and biotech education, and boasts 26 biotech companies on campus.
