Upfront

The gene team

Upfront is a quick look at the latest developments from Stanford Medicine

Stanford’s hospitals have launched a new testing service for their patients that deciphers their DNA. The clinical genomic service will help doctors at Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford diagnose and treat genetic conditions. With this, Stanford joins a small group of medical centers — about 15 — that provide genome sequencing.

During its pilot phase, testing will be limited to patients with inherited cardiovascular or neurological disease, hereditary cancer risk, unexplained drug reactions or an illness that has defied diagnosis. Its directors are Euan Ashley, MCRP, DPhil, associate professor of medicine and of genetics, and Jason Merker, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pathology.

In 2010, Ashley and bioengineering professor Stephen Quake, PhD, were the first in the world to use a healthy person’s genome sequence to predict disease and anticipate reaction to several common medications. These new genomic services are the first wave to test this new knowledge.