Pharmacogenomics is advancing quickly: we can warn prescribers in the EHR when patients have genomic variants that reduce medication effectiveness. We are going from screening populations (18,000 so far), to anticipatory screening for high risk patients (cancer center patients about to choose a chemotherapy).
Fueling AI in health care: a center for AI innovation
Progress in all of these areas is being made on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and at UCHealth. The Aurora campus is home to the Center for Health AI and the CU Department of Biomedical Informatics, both committed to harnessing the power of medical data in the service of driving innovation to improve patient care.
Pharmacists at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences are leading the charge in the field of pharmacogenomics with their knowledge of how genetics influence how drugs work in the body.
In Colorado, The Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine, a partnership between UCHealth and University of Colorado – Anschutz Medical Campus, has developed a Biobank of patients’ DNA and blood samples. This initiative has, so far, identified 60 patients who have genes identified with higher risks of diseases such as breast and other cancers, and heart failure.
Efforts are now needed to increase the diversity of current genetic libraries. This will help us understand why many diseases, such as heart disease and cancer, affect racial and ethnic groups in different ways —in return, improving the accuracy of personalized medicine for all.
Integrating Biobank data with electronic health record yields personalized pharmacogenetic insights that can spare patients pain – and perhaps save their lives.
The Biobank that returns Clinical Results...
The success of December 1st’s go-live was a culmination of years of hard work from many different teams. In 2015, CCPM partnered with UCHealth to establish the Biobank Research Study. As part of the study, UCHealth patients are asked to provide a blood or saliva sample for genetic research. There is also the potential to have clinically actionable results (e.g., PGx) returned to them and their EHR. Prior to 2021, PGx results had been returned for some Biobank participants but the return process was put on hold to upgrade some of the IT infrastructure. After an incredible team effort, the revised IT pipeline launched on December 1, 2021 and almost 4000 Biobank participants have now had CYP2C19 and SLCO1B1 results returned to their UCHealth EHR and patient portal.
We can’t do what we do without you…. and thousands of others.
To find links and trends in its genetic data, the biobank needs a large pool of genetic samples and medical records.