The creation of high-dimensional resources, such as human and other genome sequences and their variants, is propelling new opportunities for basic, clinical, and translational science. Realization of the vision of Personalized Medicine - in which therapies are predictive, personalized, preventive, and participatory - would represent the successful implementation of these resources to improve human health. Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) has internationally-recognized strengths in areas of translational science, such as basic and clinical pharmacology and genetics, required to accomplish this vision and accordingly the current VUMC research strategic plan identifies Personalized Health and Healthcare as a priority area for investment in the upcoming decade. A key intermediate step to realizing the vision of Personalized Medicine is the conduct of studies associating genetic variants with a range of human phenotypes, from disease susceptibility to beneficial drug responses to common and rare adverse drug effects. Such studies require generation of large databases that include detailed human phenotypes associated with DNA samples. At VUMC, management of multi-user, expensive, and mission-critical functions such as DNA sample handling, is operated under a institutional Core Resource approach; the DNA Resource Core allows a wide community of users high quality storage and rapid access to appropriately formatted sample sets. The Core has handled 90,000 samples since its inception in 1997, including multiple large sample sets generated with current NIH support by major users of the proposed instrument. Moreover, the scale of DNA collections at VUMC is now changing very rapidly: in February 2007, we launched the Vanderbilt DNA databank and it is now accruing 900 samples/week. By May 2008 the collection will approach 50,000 samples, and by early 2011, it will contain 200,000 samples. The databank is unique in its design, scale, and flexibility, and will be an enabling resource for genotype-phenotype associations across the disciplines in the medical center. The project has been funded to date by an institutional commitment of $3.4 million. A critical need in successful use of such large DNA collections to propel translation between the bench and the bedside is a mechanism for sample handling that ensures both timely generation of sample sets for analysis as well as data and sample integrity. Accordingly, this proposal requests funding for the purchase of a compound Storage System, that includes modules and software for sample storage, arraying, delivery, decapping, and stacking. This represents an enabling instrument for the conduct of cutting edge translational science.
The sequencing of the human genome is enabling science to address the way in which variation in DNA sequence determines important human traits, such as disease susceptibility or variable response to drugs. An important step in this research is accumulation of extremely large collections of DNA samples to detect and validate relationships between genetic variants and human traits. Using these collections in research, however, is not possible unless robust systems to acquire, store, and deliver selected samples can be deployed. Accordingly, this proposal requests a high end instrument to accomplish these goals, and to thereby enable a new era of Personalized Medicine. ? ? ? ?
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