Genomics Initiative Positions Wisconsin for Leadership in Personalized Medicine

Wisconsin may soon become an international leader in personalized medicine, a simple concept that has the potential to revolutionize health care. With this approach, physicians will analyze an individual's genome, or entire genetic make-up, in order to identify what diseases he or she might be susceptible to, then suggest strategies to prevent the problems or treat them most effectively.

On Oct. 10, 2008, Gov. Jim Doyle announced the project that may very well propel the Badger State to the head of the new field: the Wisconsin Genomics Initiative.

The public/private project brings together, for the first time, the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH), Marshfield Clinic, the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) and UW-Milwaukee.

"By aligning the intellectual capital of four major institutions that focus on health care education and delivery, the state of Wisconsin stands to make major gains in science and health care," said the governor at the press gathering. "Wisconsin is in a unique position to lead the way."

The project also will foster the development of new and existing industries needed to support individualized healthcare, added Doyle.

Personalized medicine may sound like a simple concept, but achieving it is anything but, says Paul DeLuca, PhD, vice dean and senior associate dean for research and graduate programs at the School of Medicine and Public Health.

"It will take the special capabilities of each partner in this initiative to accomplish our goal, and it could never be done alone," DeLuca says. "Each of the four institutions involved is a leader in one or more areas needed for this enormous effort to be successful."

Marshfield has created the nation's largest bio-bank, consisting of DNA samples from 20,000 individuals. Often from extended families, the samples have been linked electronically to medical records for 29 years of clinical histories.

The Medical College of Wisconsin is one of the top human genetic research centers in the country. It will perform DNA sequencing to identify genes, mutations and other genetic markers that may be hidden in each DNA sample. UW-Milwaukee will contribute through its ongoing research in urban healthcare and health informatics.

The vast amount of data generated will analyzed in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, which has one of the strongest statistical genetics groups in the country as well as top computational scientists.

"By correlating the genomic data and information from the medical records, our computer scientists will identify patterns that relate to the incidence of complex diseases," DeLuca says. "The analysis might reveal, for example, that a certain set of bio-markers make a person susceptible to heart disease."

Using genomic information to make clinical decisions has been a major goal of the Human Genome Project.

Work on the Wisconsin initiative will be conducted in two phases. In the first, researchers will build a scientific model that will predict susceptibility to certain diseases and response to treatments. In the second, the model will be applied to a wider variety of people and different diseases.

by Dian Land
This article appears in the winter 2009 issue of Quarterly.