623Personalized Medicine Partnership of Florida
In 2012, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, Moffi tt Cancer Center, and
Florida Hospital launched Personalized Medicine Partnership (PMP) of Florida that
will use molecular and genomic tools to develop new technologies for preventing
and treating cancer, cardiovascular diseases and metabolic disorders such as obe-
sity, and diabetes. The partnership will engage Sanford-Burnham’s research exper-
tise and genomics and metabolomics technologies, Moffi tt’s biospecimen bank,
data warehouse, and genome mapping capabilities, and Florida Hospital’s patient
population and clinical research capacities.
A particular focus for PMP Florida will be to use Moffi tt’s Total Cancer Care, a
treatment program that involves the mapping of more than 30,000 genes in a tumor
and then using that data to develop individual therapies that also include other medi-
cal, nutritional, and psychological considerations. The partners have complemen-
tary areas of expertise and experience. PMP Florida also seeks to attract industry
clients from the pharmaceutical and biotech sector who can utilize this unique
resource for discovery and development of new advances in health care. This part-
nership will demonstrate how personalized medicine discoveries made in research
labs will improve health care in hospitals, clinics, and medical offi ces in Florida and
across rest of US.
Partners Personalized Medicine at Massachusetts
General Hospital
Since its founding in 2001, the mission of Partners Personalized Medicine has been to
promote genetics and genomics in research and medicine and to help realize the
promise of personalized genetic medicine by accelerating the integration of genetic
knowledge into clinical care. It provides personalized medicine services to >4,000
patients and their physicians each year through >100 targeted genetic tests, WGS, and
WES. Further details can be seen on the web site: personalizedmedicine.partners.org/.
Personalized Oncology
In 2009, oncologists at the Massachusetts General Hospital started to personalize
cancer therapy. They read the genetic fi ngerprints of nearly all the new patients’
tumors in a strategy designed to customize treatment. They will search for abnor-
malities carried on major cancer genes that can predict whether drugs already avail-
able or in development might be effective against a particular patient’s cancer. High
throughput techniques are being used for sequencing 5,000–6,000 patients a year,
replacing labor-intensive techniques that had been used only selectively for a hand-
ful of cancers. The focus is more on the genetic profi le of a tumor and less on
Role of Academic Institutions in the US