Helping Patients with the Same Undiagnosed Genetic Condition Find Each Other

For rare disease patients and their families, genome and exome sequencing may identify mutations that may be drivers of a condition, but nothing more. As families search for a name to put to a disease and look for treatments, finding others with the same condition and researchers working to understand and treat it becomes a critical part of the search for answers. Now researchers at the University of Washington have created MyGene2, a web portal for people with rare genetic mutations to connect with others with the same condition and researchers interested in their particular mutation. We spoke to Michael Bamshad, professor and chief of the Division of Genetic Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington & Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Jessica Chong, one of the leads on the MyGene2 project at the Center for Mendelian Genomics at the University of Washington, about the portal, how it works, and what they are hoping to accomplish. This is an encore of an interview that first aired April 2016.