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Jackson Lab, Shriners Hospitals Partner to Investigate Genetics of Cerebral Palsy

NEW YORK — The Jackson Laboratory and the Shriners Hospitals for Children said on Friday that they have partnered to investigate the genetic factors underlying cerebral palsy.

Under the terms of their research affiliation agreement, Shriners Hospitals-led research teams will perform whole-genome sequencing using Illumina's NovaSeq platform on samples from 500 children with cerebral palsy, as well as their parents. Clinical and phenotypic characterization of the patients will also be conducted by Shriners investigators. Computational analysis of the resulting data will be performed by a team led by Jackson Lab investigators.

"Understanding the genetic mechanisms behind [cerebral palsy] could result in an entirely new way of looking at this disorder, providing hope and potential new treatment options," Charles Lee, director of the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, said in a statement.

This collaboration is the second between Shriners Hospitals and the Jackson Lab, which began working together in early 2020 to study the genetic causes of orthopedic disorders in children.

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