Tohoku University's Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization (ToMMo) is using informatics solutions from Thomson Reuters to support a large-scale genome research project aimed at furthering personalized medicine efforts.
These tools, Thomson Reuters said, will support the project's "risk analysis and drug efficacy screening by genotype, and will contribute to the organization's overall aim in realizing personalized medicine and disease prevention."
ToMMo's study aims to record the changing health of families over a ten-year period, exploring the relationships between genetic traits, lifestyle, and the future incidence of certain diseases. Its researchers are also building a biobank that will hold health information, medical records, clinical test data, blood samples, and other types of data. ToMMo was established in February 2012 as part of efforts to rebuild the Tohoku region that was devastated by the 2011 earthquake in Japan.
Under the terms of its agreement with Thomson Reuters, ToMMo will use an array of solutions suite from the company including a gene variant database, which offers information about variants associated with disease and treatment response as well as data on drug efficacy and toxicity. The database, which is part of Thomson Reuters' Cortellis for Informatics portfolio, provides curated information gleaned from journals, scientific papers, proceedings, patents, clinical trials, and US Food and Drug Administration approval documents.
This information will help ToMMo's researchers "identify key relationships between an individual's genetic composition and lifestyle, to help assess their risk factors for specific diseases and conditions," according to Joseph Donahue, senior vice president for Thomson Reuters life sciences division.
Masayuki Yamamoto, ToMMo's executive director, added that the information contained in the database is "critical in supporting our efforts to study a family's genetic profile in order to advance personalized medicine and disease prevention."