Mayo Clinic granted $3M to continue genomics, EMR research

Nearly a year after physicians at the Mayo Clinic showed that patients' genomic information stored in electronic medical records can help in disease prediction, the National Human Genome Research Institute is awarding Mayo and six other facilities $25 million over four years to build on that research. The hope is that EMR data, when combined with advances in genetics, ultimately will help provide more individualized medicine efforts and, in turn, increase quality of care.

Specifically, researchers at Mayo will examine genetic risk scores for heart attack and adverse drug reactions, according to principal investigator Dr. Iftikhar Kullo, a cardiologist at the Rochester, Minn.-based clinic. Mayo will receive $788,000 a year--$3 million in total--for its part in the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) network....