The projects will support a national genomic dataset of 100,000 genomes that reflects Canada’s diverse population.
Genome Canada awarded almost $12 million in funding to research projects led by The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), to build the largest-ever collection of human genomic data in Canada.
The funding is part of the Canadian Precision Health Initiative, which provided a total of $81 million in Government of Canada funding through Genome Canada, to create a coordinated, large-scale, diverse genomic data asset of 100,000 genomes that reflects Canada’s population. The initiative aims to drive genomics-enabled precision health for Canadians.
Of the $81 million awarded, $11,716,046 was given to two transformative projects led by SickKids, in addition to several other projects involving SickKids scientists.
“We will leverage SickKids’ strengths as the most research-intensive paediatric centre in Canada to advance the utility of genomic health data to realize the vision of Precision Child Health, allowing all patients and families to have the opportunity to learn and benefit from research,” says Dr. Stephen Scherer, Chief of Research and Senior Scientist in the Genetics & Genome Biology
program.
The genome sequencing for each of these projects will be conducted at The Centre for Applied Genomics (TCAG) at SickKids, part of CGEn, Canada’s National Platform for Genome Sequencing and Analysis. Matching of Genome Canada funding for the two projects will be facilitated by partnerships between the institutions and several
co-funding partners.
Precision Child Health – comprehensive sequencing for childhood life-long disorders (PCHSeq)
At SickKids, many children are diagnosed with genetic conditions that have a lifelong impact. Whole genome sequencing offers the potential to enable earlier and more accurate diagnosis, prediction of health trajectory, and identification of novel therapeutic targets.
Led by Dr. Stephen Scherer, this project will sequence the genomes of participants (and their parents) with a diverse range of childhood-onset conditions. The project will recruit patients and families from a wide range of clinical areas at SickKids, as well as collaborate with scientific leaders to engage participants from existing research cohorts. The team will use cutting-edge technology to ensure data quality as well as build condition-specific artificial intelligence models to analyse the data.
The project will sequence a total of 10,000 genomes over a period of four years, with data made available through the Pan Canadian Genome Library.
Project value: $15,430,370, of which Genome Canada has provided $7,518,328 to SickKids.
Read more about the project on the Genome Canada website.
