Pew Charitable Trust Awards $3M to Genetic Policy Group; Cash May Help PGx Research

NEW YORK, July 11 (GenomeWeb News) - The Pew Charitable Trusts has made a $3 million investment in the Genetics and Public Policy Center in order to "improve the overall effectiveness, safety, and reliability of genetic testing," the group said last week.

The award brings to $13 million the money the Trust, a joint project with JohnsHopkinsUniversity, has given to the Center since it was created in 2002. The cash may also be a boon to pharmacogenomics technologies, which play a significant role in the molecular diagnostic applications involved in genetic testing.

The two-year grant is designed to enable the Center to work with medical, governmental, business, and research communities to "build consensus on how to ensure these diagnostic tools are safe, effective, and accurate," it said in a statement.

The Center  works with scientific, medical, legal, and ethical experts and patient advocates to develop "a comprehensive picture of the legal and regulatory environments for reproductive genetic technologies, including genetic testing, which has resulted in an array of policy options that public and private sector decision makers could use to guide the development and use of these powerful new technologies," it said in a statement.

The Center is part of the Phoebe R. Berman Bioethics Institute at Johns Hopkins, and is located on the Washington, DC, Hopkinscampus.