BGI, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia partner to target pediatric diseases

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."

"We are very excited about this new partnership with BGI," said Philip Johnson, M.D., Chief Scientific Officer at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "It is an ideal collaboration between two world-class institutions. The ultimate goal is to change the way we diagnose and treat diseases that affect children and families, and our work with BGI is an important first step toward that end."

"This new partnership will accelerate the discovery of genetic variants underpinning rare and common pediatric diseases by joining the forces of one of the best pediatric hospitals in the world with the world's largest genomics institute," said Jun Wang, Executive Director of BGI.

"We look forward to a productive relationship with The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, a global leader in pediatric care and research," stated Greg Wang, Chief Executive Officer of BGI Americas. "Given BGI's expertise in genomic sequencing and bioinformatics, we expect our partnership with Children's Hospital and the establishment of the BGI@CHOP Joint Genome Center to lead to significant breakthroughs that may be translated into improved patient care."

Source: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia