Finding Answers in DNA

For patients with a rare disease, the search for the cause of disease—the diagnostic odyssey—can last years. We now know that the answers may lie in a patient’s DNA. Just as your fingerprint is unique to you, so is your DNA genetic code.

At the new Smith Family Clinic for Genomic Medicine, we will see those patients with rare, unknown or undiagnosed disease who have exhausted traditional diagnostic approaches.

Physicians will refer those patients to the clinic to have their whole genome—every bit of DNA in their cells—sequenced. Whole Genome Sequencing means determining the exact order of the base pairs in a segment of DNA. Human chromosomes range in size from about 50,000,000 to 300,000,000 base pairs. These are sequenced at the HudsonAlpha Clinical Services Lab, LLC. The Smith Family Clinic for Genomic Medicine team explores these variants to identify the single letter change causing disease.

By building the first clinic in the world solely for the practice of genomic medicine, we can help tailor a patient’s treatment, explore new and effective therapies or even cure a disease.