UCSF will perform separate procedures on the samples to determine the length of telomeres–sections of DNA at the ends of chromosomes that protect against damage. The length of telomeres is associated with cell division and aging. One of the coinvestigators on the project is Elizabeth Blackburn, a biologist at UCSF who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine for her work on telomeres.
Other so-called biobanks may be larger–for example, the U.K. Biobank is in the process of collecting samples from 500,000 people. But in that effort, the actual genetic analysis won’t be done until researchers design studies of various subcategories of patients and perform the genetic analyses on the relevant subset.
Many other institutions are assembling smaller biobanks and genetic-information databases. The Mayo Clinic, for example, this year launched an effort to build its own biobank of genetic information collected from 20,000 patients for purposes of general genomic and clinical research. It is also amassing smaller banks focusing on specific diseases, including bipolar disorder, a spokesman said yesterday.
John Glaser, vice president and chief information officer at Partners Healthcare in Boston, says the Kaiser Permanente platform will make it far easier to conduct research. “The payoffs could be very significant reductions in the costs and time–something on the order of a factor of five–to detect problematic medications and other medical interventions, assess the comparative effectiveness of treatments, and conduct clinical research,” he says.
Glaser adds that the long-term vision is to connect the various genetic databases to amplify their benefits. “One can imagine dozens of databases that are linked that have technical and governance means to conduct parallel analyses,” Glaser says. But, he notes, “there are challenges to making this happen that have only begun to be explored.”
Kaiser Permanente is meanwhile trying to expand its collection of biological samples to 500,000 by 2013.