The Most Trusted Name in DNA Testing

As public access to health-related DNA genetic testing is increasingly marketed largely without government regulation, there are concerns about how the knowledge received from the test results will be used by the consumer and/or health care providers.

Two agencies in the National Institutes of Health—the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Cancer Institute—have teamed up with two major health providers to investigate the interest level and the responses of healthy, young adults in receiving genetic testing for eight common conditions.

The study, dubbed the “Multiplex Initiative,” will look at how people who decide to take the test use the information to make future health care decisions.

The DNA test used in the study is designed to yield information about 15 different genes that play roles in type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, lung cancer, colorectal cancer and malignant melanoma.

The NIH News release says:

“The Multiplex Initiative will provide insights that will be key to advancing the concept of personalized medicine,” said NHGRI Scientific Director Eric Green, M.D., Ph.D. “As genomic technologies are introduced for wider use, researchers and clinicians will need to know how genetic susceptibility tests will be received by patients. This study will be an important first step in understanding how such testing can be practically used in primary care settings.”

According to the lead investigator, Dr. Colleen McBride, the Multiplex Initiative will inform the field about how to communicate genetic risk to patient populations and will establish an infrastructure for additional research studies aiming to answer social and behavioral questions important for the genome era.

To learn more about DNA science and technology, visit DDC’s Technology section at http://www.dnacenter.com/science-technology/.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 at 12:45 pm and is filed under DNA Paternity Testing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.