Dive Brief:
- Researchers have found new connections between human genetic profiles and varied diseases by digging into EMR data.
- In the study, which was published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, a consortium of medical research institutions including the Mayo Clinic and the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine surveyed thousands of electronic health records.
- When the researchers then analyzed the data, the authors identified 63 new genetic links to diseases, ranging from skin cancer to anemia.
Dive Insight:
It's getting more and more common for researchers to connect genetic profiles to drugs, determining which patients would respond to a given prescription. According to these researchers, this new study can also help link seemingly unrelated symptoms, identify potentially harmful side effects of a drug and guide research to new uses for drugs.This method, known as a phenome-wide associated study, should prove a useful source of future genetic information as well, experts say.