Imagine going to a doctor, hospital, health fair, clinic—and having the healthcare practitioner know precisely what diagnostic tests to order, or what medications or chemotherapy will combat your illness with the least toxic side effects, based on your genetic makeup. This is how medical care will be delivered in the future, made possible in part through the Institute’s partnership with researchers at the NYU School of Medicine’s Human Genetics Program, aided by consultants from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, MIT Broad Institute and Harvard Medical School.

The historic Human Genome Project defined the major variations in DNA sequencing in European, East Asian and West African peoples. That has led scientists to analyze these gene variants, which are contained within block-like structures, or “haplotypes.” The resulting cataloguing of these blocks is the “HapMap.”

The ability to identify genetic variations in populations that can demonstrate disease, response or toxicity for particular population groups – including, but not limited to, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Middle Eastern Jews, Han Chinese, West Indians—will make it possible to develop medical care tailored to an individual’s genetic phenotype, leading to best practices for preventing, diagnosing and treating disease.

The implications of the HapMap are truly revolutionary: data decoded by HapMaps will help physicians understand an individual’s susceptibility to disease, predict its course and target treatment accordingly—including breast and ovarian cancer, cardiovascular disease, hepatitis B, and type-2 diabetes/metabolic syndrome.

Human Genetics Program: Genetic Analysis of Jewish Origins

The HapMap Project in the News:

One Big, Happy Family, August 22, 2007

How do Sephardic Jews Figure into the Genetic Equation?, August 25, 2007