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The Amgen research team in charge of conducting a genome-wide screen of the 28,000 participants in the Women’s Genome Health Study has submitted analysis of 3 billion genotypes, representing about 8,200 individuals, to the company’s collaborators at the renowned Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass.
The Women’s Genome Health Study (WGHS) is being conducted to help identify genetic variations in women underlying a range of serious illnesses, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, breast cancer and osteoporosis. The study is surveying genetic differences among 28,000 initially healthy American women who are enrolled in an ongoing study conducted by Brigham & Women’s Hospital (BWH) and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. The women have been tracked for more than a decade for the development of many common health disorders.
Joe Miletich, Amgen’s senior vice president, Research & Development, noted that “because the Women’s Genome Health Study is unique in its size and the length of time participants have been followed, it will allow scientists to focus on the genetic risk factors for diseases with extraordinary statistical power.”
The Women’s Genome Health Study is a well-defined, world-class epidemiological cohort. Participants have been followed carefully for an average of 12 years and will continue to be tracked for another five to 10 years for additional health events. The women were all in good health at the time of the study’s enrollment. To date, approximately:
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“We expect this study to have a significant impact for years to come on healthcare research, including understanding diseases, discovering new targets for therapeutic intervention, and developing new medicines,” Miletich said.
WGHS and Amgen Discovery Research: A Collaboration that Benefits Patients
The research team responsible for this large-scale genetic analysis is the Molecular Sciences group located at Amgen Massachusetts in Cambridge. Headed by Alex Parker, principal scientist, Molecular Sciences, the team includes Sunita Badola, senior associate scientist; Elizabeth Robinson, associate scientist; Kim Tsui, associate scientist; and Lauren Young, associate.
Amgen has entered into a separate agreement with San Diego-based Illumina, Inc. to provide the technology that enables Amgen Massachusetts scientists to evaluate the genetic samples. Throughput is measured in terms of data points, called SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms). Parker projects the team will be delivering “just shy of 900 million SNPs a month for the WGHS. This equates to more than 2,000 individuals genotyped a month.”
Work is progressing at a significantly faster rate than originally envisioned, enabling Amgen to begin to utilize this large-scale genotyping technology for its own innovative research programs. “For example,” says Parker, “finding genetic predictors of treatment response among clinical trial participants enrolled in studies of Amgen therapeutic candidates.”
Amgen expects to complete genetic screening for the study in the third quarter of 2008, but the Amgen Massachusetts team will remain involved for a number of years on analysis of the results, says Parker, who will be responsible for facilitating interaction between scientists at all Amgen research sites and the WGHS investigators.
“Managing this collaborative relationship is the key,” says Parker, “so that ultimately patients will reap the full scientific benefits of the data discovered during this project.”
