Peter Verlander and Heidi Rehm at the Laboratory for Molecular Medicine work to move novel genetic testing from the lab into the clinic for better diagnosis and treatment of common disorders, such as heart disease, cancer, and hearing loss. (Graham Ramsay) |
Lab moves genomic testing into the clinicThe earliest symptom of the inherited heart condition hypertrophic cardiomyopathy can be sudden death at a tragically young age. Harvard Medical School researchers discovered the first human gene underlying the disorder 15 years ago, but clinical genetic testing to identify those people at risk just became available last year. About the same time, another genetic test emerged to detect the one in 10 lung cancers susceptible to certain new targeted drugs, within months of reports by two HMS teams that these drug-responsive tumor cells have mutations in a key signaling domain of their epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFRs). |
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