Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Brief Blog: New Term, Narcissome (Genomeweb)

On March 28, 2017, Genomeweb's Julia Karow runs an article on discussion of elective exome or whole genome screening, a topic of discussion at American College of American Genetics (ACMG) last week.  New term:  "Narcissome."  Subscription article here.

Separately, in a meeting last week, I heard a reference to the "economicsome," the payment system for advanced lab tests.

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Exome and whole-genome sequencing have been firmly established as diagnostic tools for rare genetic diseases that can pinpoint molecular causes missed by more targeted tests. More recently, though, several labs have started to move genome-scale sequencing into preventive medicine, with the goal to detect increased disease risks and predict atypical drug responses in seemingly healthy individuals.
At the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics annual meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, last week, representatives from Harvard Medical School, Illumina, Baylor College of Medicine, the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, and the National Human Genome Research Institute talked about their experience with genomic tests catering to individuals that neither have cancer nor a rare inherited disorder, variedly referred to as "genome screens," "elective genomes," or >>> "narcissomes." In addition, several commercial labs spoke about recently launched or planned genomic tests for so-called healthy adults at the conference, including WuXi NextCode, Ambry Genetics, and Invitae.