NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The Regeneron Genetics Center, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, has partnered with Columbia University Medical Center, the Clinic for Special Children, and Baylor College of Medicine to study a variety of Mendelian diseases.
In collaboration with Columbia, RGC will study the genetic basis of familial diseases, such as inherited cardiometabolic diseases, cancer predisposition, and rare genetic diseases. In partnership with the Clinic for Special Children, the center will study the genetic basis of pediatric disorders in Amish and Mennonite populations. The RGC will also study the function of Mendelian disease genes discovered by the Baylor Center for Mendelian Genomics.
The new research collaborations add to RGC's existing partnerships with the Geisinger Health System and with the National Human Genome Research Institute's Undiagnosed Diseases Programs to study genetic causes of disease.
The Geisinger collaboration involves sequencing the exomes or genomes of at least 100,000 Geisinger patients over the next five years to find new associations between genes and disease.
Regeneron announced the formation of the RGC in January. To date, the center has sequenced samples from more than 10,000 individuals and has the capacity to sequence more than 50,000 samples per year. It is using a cloud-based genome informatics and data management platform from DNAnexus to integrate sequencing data with de-identified clinical records.