Partners HealthCare Shopping at the “Smart Store” with collaboration from HP – Customized Genetic Cancer Treatment Plans

The current five year relationship has seen the development of a large multi-cluster computer facility to support genetics researchers.  The key to the entire program is to leveraging IT infrastructure for genomic information, running and creating those algorithms for RNA and DNA information and studies.  

A few  months back when I interviewed Dr. Patrice Milos, Chief Science Officer at Helicos, one of the companies that manufactures genome sequencing machines, she and I both whole heartedly agreed, it’s all about software. 

Personalized medicine will rely on IT – It’s all about Software

How Hot is Genomics and the Sequencing Machines?

You may also want to read an interview I did with Rosetta Genomics about how “cancer of the unknown” can now be detected, 1000s of patients never have been able to find this out for years with lung cancer and now it is possible to find what kind of cancer is in the tumor of a lung.

In a related story, here’s the word on Massachusetts General being the first hospital to use genetics to customize cancer treatments.  They are part of Partners Healthcare.  The tests are to be around $2000.00, and it is up in the air of course, on whether or not insurance or the patient will have to pay and what portion, so we are back once more to risk management trying to control science and as long as I have been around, that just does not appear any time soon to happen and a big portion of why healthcare fails so many today.

The hospital is also in close proximity of Rosetta Genomics’s lab for lung cancer tumors, which has the ability now to determine cancer of the unknown through genomics with lung cancer tumors, something many never find out or their doctors, so with this information cancer treatment can be personalized to deal with liver cancer for example if it has in fact traveled to the lungs and the tumor did not originate as lung cancer. 

We have all read the stories of late with Blue Cross paying 30% more than it does to some of the other Boston Hospitals, so perhaps Partners will have some luck here too with negotiating with risk management for payment of some of the tests.  BD 

Rosetta Genomics Interview – microRNA for Diagnosing Lung Cancer Tumors

There are some genomic resources on this site as well.

Genomic Links – New Resources on the Medical Quack

Hewlett-Packard Co. and Partners HealthCare on Tuesday announced an agreement to develop software and implement hardware and services they said will focus on clinical genomics and advance personalized medicine.

This phase of the collaboration focuses on extending Partners’ technology infrastructure, especially data storage capabilities, to address the challenges posed by next-generation sequencing technologies.

The companies did not provide financial details, but said the project is a multi-million dollar one.

Partners HealthCare is an integrated health system founded by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital

HP, Partners HealthCare in collaboration - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

Related Reading:

Who's going to pay for the Warfarin Test - Personalized Medicine

MDVIP Physicians Partners with Navigenics to Provide Personal Genetic Tests for Preventive Medicine

Interpreting the Genome - understanding all the data

Helicos BioSciences and Personalized Medicine - Featured Interview with Dr. Patrice Milos

An Introduction to Genomics – Humans have Bugs just like Windows does and It’s all about the Code

Single Cell Gene Sequencing from Helicos – How it works

Helicos Ships Sequencer to Stanford University

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