Perlegen Sciences said today it will work with an undisclosed electronic medical records company to search through data from four million patients for genetic markers that could help predict patient response to certain medical treatments.
Perlegen said it has reached an agreement under which it will have exclusive access to a database of US medical records, from which it will target patients who will be sought for DNA samples.
Sounds like the idea is to identify groups of patients suffering from specific diseases, ask them to volunteer a DNA sample, and then compare their genetic profiles to matched sets of healthy controls. The power of this approach will of course depend on a number of factors: how accurate and detailed the medical records are, how willing patients are to provide DNA samples, and so on.
Nonetheless, with four million patients to choose from, Perlegen will have a data-set of unprecedented size to use for chasing common disease variants. No doubt we'll be hearing more about this project over the next few years.
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