Monday, July 25, 2016

University Of Utah Ties With NantHealth On Genetic Study

The University of Utah has linked up with a personalized medicine developer NantHealth, to help analyze the genomic profiles of over a thousand people to help identify genetically linked diseases. According to NantHealth and the University of Utah, they have launched the Heritage 1K Project Study, which will look to help discover the genetic causes of 25 rare and common diseases. The two said they hope to identify genetic causes of such conditions as breast, colon, ovarian, and prostate cancers, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), chronic lymphocytic leukemia, autism, preterm birth, epilepsy, and other hereditary conditions. The University of Utah maintains the Utah Population Database, a huge database of family health histories and data, which uses the well documented family history of the population in Utah with health records. The Utah Population Database has been used for more than 30 years to study individuals and families that have higher than normal incidence of cancer or other diseases, to analyze patterns of genetic inheritance, and to identify specific genetic mutations, according to the UofU. NantHealth is based in Los Angeles, California.