The New York Genome Center (“NYGC”) is an independent, non-profit organization that leverages the collaborative resources of leading academic medical centers, research universities, and commercial organizations. NYGC’s mission is to transform biomedical research and clinical care in New York and beyond through the creation of what will become one of the largest bioinformatics and genomics facilities in North America. 

 The unprecedented sharing of data and resources among these premier institutions will dramatically increase the quality and speed of research outcomes in order to advance clinical care. This collaboration will help forward the advances leading to a new era of genomic medicine, accelerate the development of new diagnostics and treatments for human diseases, and provide an engine for life science commercialization in the region.

The technology that launched the biomedical revolution and made the Human Genome Project possible – DNA sequencing – is once again on the cusp of transforming biomedical research and healthcare. According to national leaders, advancements currently being made in DNA sequencing technology are leading to a revolution in the practice of medicine.

This revolution is unfolding in a variety of ways. The cost and duration of genomic sequencing is rapidly falling, the federal government is making a strong commitment to support full implementation of electronic health records that are a requisite for genomic medicine, and the number of targeted drugs and companion diagnostics entering clinical practice is continuing to rise. Today, there are already more than 100 FDA-approved drugs – about 10% of all marketed drugs – that recommend or require genetic testing for optimal treatment, and this number is expected to climb significantly as greater than 60 percent of all drugs in preclinical development rely on biomarker data.

Much work remains to be done to realize the promise of genomic medicine, but the resources invested by NYGC today will enable our scientists and clinicians to bring us closer to delivering the right treatment or method of prevention to the right patient tomorrow.