Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine Launched With $50M Funding

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The University of Washington School of Medicine today announced the launch of the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine (BBI), which is being funded with a $50 million gift from friends and family of recently deceased Costco Cofounder Jeff Brotman.

The BBI, which will be directed by UW Medicine's Jay Shendure, will establish a network of research labs across UW Medicine, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Seattle Children's Hospital. Among the institute's first initiatives will be to catalog the roughly 60,000 estimated possible mutations of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes in order to identify those that confer the greatest risk of breast cancer and help patients make informed decisions about their health.

"A typical patient doesn't really exist, yet for more than a century, medicine has been focused on diagnosing and treating typical patients," Shendure said in a statement. "Precision medicine aims to use an individual patient's unique genetic code to more effectively diagnose and individually treat that person. Through both basic science and the translation of new advances to the clinic, the institute will accelerate this process."

The Scan

Positive Framing of Genetic Studies Can Spark Mistrust Among Underrepresented Groups

Researchers in Human Genetics and Genomics Advances report that how researchers describe genomic studies may alienate potential participants.

Small Study of Gene Editing to Treat Sickle Cell Disease

In a Novartis-sponsored study in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that a CRISPR-Cas9-based treatment targeting promoters of genes encoding fetal hemoglobin could reduce disease symptoms.

Gut Microbiome Changes Appear in Infants Before They Develop Eczema, Study Finds

Researchers report in mSystems that infants experienced an enrichment in Clostridium sensu stricto 1 and Finegoldia and a depletion of Bacteroides before developing eczema.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment Specificity Enhanced With Stem Cell Editing

A study in Nature suggests epitope editing in donor stem cells prior to bone marrow transplants can stave off toxicity when targeting acute myeloid leukemia with immunotherapy.