Current Projects
Clinical Genomics Workstream
An effort to develop methods to integrate genomic information into clinical care, using methods such as best practice alerts and systematizing the inclusion and presentation of genomic variant data (generated in the VUMC clinical laboratories or externally) into the electronic health record (EHR).
Data and Research Center (DRC), All of Us Research Program
All of Us is a national initiative that is recruiting and following long-term at least a million participants to study genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors affecting health. Vanderbilt was chosen to lead the creation and operation of the DRC in 2016.
The Data and Research Center aims to collect, curate, and secure all data, and make the data available to the wider research community. Recruitment includes a major focus on communities under-represented in biomedical research, and the DRC created a first-of-its-kind cloud environment for management of this large dataset.
Major partners include the Broad Institute and Verily/Google. Josh Denny, a previous leader in Vanderbilt Personalized Medicine, became CEO of the All of Us program in 2020.
Drug Hypersensitivity Programs
Research and clinical programs in drug hypersensitivity take place in the Center for Drug Safety and Immunology, which provides expert care for individuals with all types of allergic reactions to medicines. The clinic's mission is to eliminate uncertainty for individuals with potential drug allergies and to improve the safety and effectiveness of drug therapy.
Genetics Clinics
Multiple specialty clinics have been established to deliver specialize care to patients with known or suspected genetic diseases:
- Atrial Fibrillation Precision Medicine Research Program
- Cardiomyopathy Clinic
- Clonal Hematopoiesis Clinic
- Family Cancer Clinic
- Genetic Arrhythmia Clinic
- Genetic Epilepsy Clinic
- Genomic and Therapeutics Clinic
- Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Clinic
- Lipid Clinic
Vanderbilt has been a site in eMERGE since the network was founded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) in 2007.
eMERGE is a consortium of U.S. medical research institutions that aims to use electronic health records (EHRs) to discover new relationships between genetic variants and human disease and drug response phenotypes, and to develop methods to bring validated genetic variant information to the bedside.
eMERGE Network Coordinating Center (CC): Located at Vanderbilt since 2007, the center focuses on three major areas:
- Accelerating phenotype algorithm development and sharing across the network
- Expanding methods to integrate high quality genomic information across the network and into the EHR
- Expanding and accelerating methods to determine re-identification risk and levels of privacy for the network
Genomic Learning Health System
This National Human Genome Research Institute network was founded in mid-2024 with the goal of developing and validating methods to increase the uptake of indicated genetic testing.
GetPreCiSe (Genetic Privacy and Identity in Community Settings)
This NIH Center of Excellence in Ethics Research was founded based on the observation that the debate about genetic privacy and identity has arisen (a) on an incomplete understanding of the influences on the actors involved in genomics research and translation and (b) on possible, rather than probable, risks.
GetPreCiSe integrates a large group of interdisciplinary scholars and community advisors to collaborate and develop a more comprehensive understanding of these worries and the factors that influence them, to model actual risks to privacy and identity, all of which will be used to inform policy.
IGNITE Integrated, Individualized, and Intelligent Prescribing (I3P)
The Vanderbilt site of the NHGRI’s Implementing GeNomics In PracTicE (IGNITE II) Network. The Vanderbilt I3P site of IGNITE II, another NHGRI network, is performing a multi-site test of the implementation of genomic medicine by embedding genetic information within EHRs in diverse healthcare environments to show that this is not only achievable but also can alter physician behavior toward a vision of personalized medicine.
I3P is part of the larger IGNITE II program, which is driven by the desire to accelerate the pace of incorporating patients’ genomic information into clinical care and to carefully evaluate implementation efforts.
Pharmacogenomic Resource for Enhanced Decisions in Care & Treatment (PREDICT)
Vanderbilt University Medical Center launched PREDICT, a program of preemptive pharmacogenetics testing coupled to real-time decision support, in 2010.
PREDICT currently provides genetic variant based advice for xx drug-gene pairs: when a drug is prescribed to a patient with pharmacogenetic variants important for that drug, the electronic healthcare system responds with real-time advice on dose adjustment or alternate drugs.
Phenome-Wide Association Studies (PheWAS)
Analyze many phenotypes compared to a single genetic variant (or other attribute). This method was originally described using electronic medical record (EMR) data from the Vanderbilt DNA biobank, BioVU, and is now widely-applied by the genome science research community analyze densely-phenotyped datasets. The site PheWAScatalog.org provides a catalog of PheWAS results.
Potocsnak Center for Undiagnosed and Rare Diseases at Vanderbilt
Comprises a unique and innovative group of programs that have helped individuals and families who have been struggling with unexplained medical conditions. Run by a team of experts at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the Potocsnak Center is dedicated to providing a comprehensive approach to diagnosis for individuals with rare and undiagnosed diseases.
National Human Genome Research Institute PRIMED consortium
This National Human Genome Research Institute’s consortium is focused on developing polygenic risk scores that will enable improved prediction of risk across varied ancestries using polygenic risk scores.
The STAR CRM, funded through the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), includes:
- Vanderbilt Health System
- The Vanderbilt Healthcare Affiliated Network
- Meharry Medical College
- UNC Health Care System
- Duke Health System
- Health Sciences South Carolina
- Atrium Health (formerly Wake Forest)
- Mayo Clinic
These systems comprise scores of academic and community hospitals, hundreds of practices and well over 10 million patients.
The objective of this CRN is to improve health by supporting projects in comparative effectiveness research, pragmatic clinical trials, health system innovation and other key research areas.