NEW YORK – Intermountain Primary Children's Hospital and University of Utah Health said Monday that they are expanding their pediatric genome sequencing efforts with the help of a $9 million gift.
The Warren Alpert Foundation provided $4.5 million to help create Primary Children's Gene Kids, a three-year initiative to help children with genetic conditions by broadening access to diagnostic genome sequencing. An additional $4.5 million came from matching funds.
"With Gene Kids, we will strive to reach every child and family in need, regardless of their location, through research, discovery, and innovative therapies that lead to better outcomes," Dustin Lipson, president of Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital, said in a statement.
Primary Children's Center for Personalized Medicine is a partnership between Primary Children's Hospital and University of Utah Health. Launched in 2019 with funding from the Intermountain Foundation, the center leads efforts to transform pediatric medicine by advancing genetic testing and developing new gene therapies.
In March, Intermountain Children's partnered with Fabric Genomics on whole-genome sequencing analysis.
"We hope that Gene Kids will help reduce the length of the diagnostic odyssey for children and their families," Joshua Bonkowsky, medical director of the Center for Personalized Medicine, said in a statement. "At times when an immediate diagnosis isn't possible, a child's data will be reanalyzed later in hopes of providing a diagnosis in the future."