The HudsonAlpha Foundation has received a $525,000 donation from an anonymous donor to help support the new Smith Family Clinic for Genomic Medicine.
The Smith Family Clinic opened in November on the HudsonAlpha campus and is believed to be the first clinic in the world to use whole genome sequencing exclusively to diagnose rare, undiagnosed and misdiagnosed disease. Every genome has millions of variants, or changes to the DNA. The clinical team identifies the variants linked to a patient’s disease and, if possible, uses that information to recommend new therapies or treatments.
“We are so excited to support the new genomic medicine team at HudsonAlpha and look forward to the rapid diagnosis and treatment of patients based on their unique genomes,” the anonymous donor stated. “This highly respected team is here to change how medicine is practiced and we are humbled to be a small part of it.”
“We are working towards one goal here: to improve medicine,” said Howard Jacob, PhD, executive vice president for medical genomics at HudsonAlpha and the head of the genomic medicine team at the clinic. “This generous gift allows us to use genomics today to help find answers for patients struggling with undiagnosed or misdiagnosed diseases. Those answers are the first step in providing treatment.”
