Genomic Prognostics

A key problem facing the use of genomic information for prognostic purposes is that genome-wide association studies (GWAS) face daunting statistical problems.  When a genome-wide test is performed over 20,000 loci or 500,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), there is a dilution of statistical power that arises from the number of tests performed.  With a 1% threshold for statistical significance, 500,000 tests are expected to produce 5,000 “positive” results by chance alone.  But if the threshold for statistical significance is increased to 0.001%, many genuine effects that are only moderate in size will fail to be detected.

Genescient uses a multiple-screen strategy to reduce this problem.  This comes naturally from our “two-way” genomic screen approach.

Using its patent-pending technology, Genescient takes the strong-signal genomic information provided by the selection experiments and searches through an existing GWAS human genomic databases to look for confirmation of the animal genomic findings.  This is a key step, because not everything that is important for the health of a laboratory animal will also be important for human health and disease.  When we have such confirmation of the animal genomic signal in human genomics, we are confident that we have found a key biomedical pathway that plays a role in the health and disease of both the animal model and human patients.

Genescient has already used this technology to enrich the GWAS research of Kronos Science Laboratory on Alzheimer’s Disease.

We have also made progress with the development of new genomic prognostics for an assortment of other disorders, from hypertension to diabetes.