August 19, 2022 – Mount Sinai Health System and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have launched a new human genome sequencing research project called the Mount Sinai Million Health Discoveries Program with the Regeneron Genetics Center (RGC), part of the industry-leading, New York-based biotechnology company Regeneron.
The Program aims to enroll one million Mount Sinai patients over a five-year period, making it one of the most ambitious projects of its kind and the largest Regeneron-supported sequencing effort to date. Its goal is to provide researchers with a unique data set that will help them assess the true potential of genetics-based, precision medicine approaches to guide everyday patient care, as well as to generate new insights to guide the discovery and development of potential new therapies.
The collaboration team plans to combine the RGC’s massive gene sequencing capabilities and scientific research expertise with Mount Sinai’s large, diverse patient population and advanced electronic health records systems, all supported by a digital health platform developed by Vibrent Health.
One of those ways is to adopt streamlined approaches to the enrollment process, some of which were inspired by adjustments Dr. Charney and others had to make in 2020 during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The project will also be led by Girish N. Nadkarni, MD, MPH, Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine; Dara Meyer, MS, PMP, Director of Operations and Project Management; and Rachelle Weisman, MPH, Associate Director of Clinical Operations, all at Icahn Mount Sinai.
Dr. Charney and Dr. Nadkarni were appointed recently as Co-Directors of The Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine at Icahn Mount Sinai. The Mount Sinai Million Health Discoveries Program will be administered by the Institute, which spearheaded a forerunner of the program called BioMe, an electronic medical record-linked biobank.
The Program will be part of other initiatives within the Institute, including multimodal data science, deep phenotyping of patients with informative genetic variation, and last-mile experimental interventions to rigorously test new treatments before they are incorporated into clinical care.
Like many large genetic studies, the Mount Sinai Million Health Discoveries Program will enroll consenting patients; sequence and analyze their DNA; and then link their sequence data to anonymous, or “de-identified,” versions of their electronic medical records for researchers to study. Patients will be recruited at the Mount Sinai Health System, which handles about 4 million patients per year and stores their health data in its electronic medical records systems.
The RGC will perform exome sequencing and whole-genome genotyping by sequencing analysis on all DNA samples, as well as whole-genome sequencing on a large subset of samples. The RGC contributes similar work to the ongoing BioMe collaboration with Mount Sinai, which focuses on the broader relationship between health and the human genome. Vibrent Health, a leading digital health solutions company, will provide a robust privacy-preserving platform for e-consenting, data collection, and engagement for clinical research. The Program will also benefit from Vibrent’s experience as the technology platform for the National Institutes of Health’s million-person All of Us Research Program.