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Genetic Tesitng
For those who are curious about their genetic ancestry or looking to find out more about their family’s health history, there soon will be an opportunity to become part of a DNA testing program that will help families across Minnesota understand their genetic health.
HealthPartners and leading genetic company, Helix, have partnered to launch myGenetics, a research program that will look at how DNA impacts health and how it may be used to provide more personalized care to their patients. Over the next four years, the organization is seeking more than 100,000 volunteers throughout the metro to add their partial DNA sequence to the myGenetics database. The saliva results are then integrated with patient health records and shared during their clinical care.
But when it comes to the health of individuals and health of communities, many different factors affect people’s health, says Nico Pronk, the president of the HealthPartners Institute, which is responsible for all research and medical education across the organization, and is the chief science officer for HealthPartners. “What we are trying to do is make personalized medicine based on genomic information more available to our patients in any depth [or] way by making it a large scalable program,” Pronk said.
And by "personalized," Pronk means each individual has a specific genetic makeup. He explains that the genomic information that comes from a test is individual to each patient. “You may have a genetic predisposition toward a specific disease. And if that were known, you can have an early intervention that can treat such a disease.” For this program, Pronk says they are focusing on three Tier 1 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention diseases that are known to have a higher likelihood on public health.
The list includes BRCA1 or BRCA2, which are the breast and ovarian cancer genes, Lynch syndrome, and familial hypercholesterolemia. People with genetic mutations are much more likely to get certain diseases. According to HealthPartners, “In similar studies, as many as 1 in 75 participants were found to be at risk for a serious health issue, of which 90 percent would not have been discovered through traditional practice.”
Starting in May, the no-cost, voluntary program will initially only be available to HealthPartners patients over the age of 18. Pronk says patients can go to participating clinics and sign up. Once a sample is collected and sent to Helix, the genetic testing results will be available through an online portal in about eight weeks. Scott Beedy, HealthPartners senior communications consultant, says people who aren’t patients with HealthPartners will have the opportunity to become one and participate once care is established at a HealthPartners or Park Nicollet Clinic.
Because the program comes at no cost to HealthPartners patients, Pronk says the idea is to provide not only to people who can pay for DNA health testing out of pocket, but provide people with a service that can make a difference in their health and wellbeing.
“This is truly intended to be an equitable kind of initiative. That is making sure that effective treatments can reach underserved populations, but also affordable treatments,” Pronk said.
