The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and BGI Partner to Establish New Genome Center

PRNewswire via COMTEX -- The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and BGI, the world's largest genomics institute, today announced they have formed a partnership, BGI@CHOP, to conduct large-scale human genome sequencing and bioinformatics analysis at a newly established, state-of-the-art Joint Genome Center at Children's Hospital. The partnership will focus on the discovery of genes underpinning rare and common pediatric diseases using next-generation sequencing. The Center became fully operational last month.

The BGI@CHOP partnership will bring together the unique strengths of two world-class institutions. BGI's capabilities and expertise in whole genome sequencing and analysis, combined with Children's Hospital's extensive biobank and expertise in clinical phenotyping, will allow scientists and clinicians to harness the power of large, detailed data sets to improve the lives of patients and families.

"The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has built the largest pediatric biobank in the world, and because many of these samples have been linked to clinical data using an electronic medical record, we can now follow disease processes into adulthood," said Hakon Hakonarson, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Center for Applied Genomics at Children's Hospital. "Through our partnership with BGI, we now have a clear path forward into the genomics-based personalized medicine arena."

About BGI

BGI was founded in Beijing, China, on September 9th, 1999, with the mission of being a premier scientific partner to the global research community. The goal of BGI is to make leading-edge genomic science highly accessible through its investment in infrastructure that leverages the best available technology, economies of scale, and expert bioinformatics resources.

About Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the first pediatric hospital in the United States. Through its long-standing commitment to providing exceptional patient care, training new generations of pediatric healthcare professionals and pioneering major research initiatives, Children's Hospital has fostered many discoveries that have benefited children worldwide and its pediatric research program is among the largest in the U.S. In addition, its unique family-centered care and public service programs have brought the 516-bed hospital recognition as a leading advocate for children and adolescents.

Read more about this venture and these institutions here.