In Mount Sinai’s Branford, Connecticut, laboratory, Research Associate Courtney Pietropaolo prepares DNA samples for sequencing.
In its first full year of operation, the Mount Sinai Genetic Testing Laboratory in Branford, Connecticut, has become an integral part of the Mount Sinai Health System’s efforts to better diagnose and treat disease.
The 16,400-square-foot facility, located 85 miles from New York City, has the high-throughput equipment to sequence thousands of samples monthly to uncover variations in DNA that code for Alzheimer’s and coronary disease, and cancer, among other diseases.
“We’ve demonstrated that we’re on the cutting edge of today’s data-driven medicine,” says Todd Arnold, PhD, Managing Director of the Genetic Testing Laboratory in Branford. “Through our ability to generate data from hundreds of samples a day, we’re giving researchers and clinicians a fast and effective way to identify variants that can be linked to disease.”
A milestone for the laboratory was its certification in November from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the State of Connecticut to begin processing clinical samples originating from many states. Licensing is expected to be secured for New York State later this year. As part of that effort, all oncologic sequencing will be transferred to Branford from the Mount Sinai Genetic Testing Laboratory in Manhattan.
The Branford facility is gearing up to handle what ultimately could be several hundred thousand samples as part of the Resilience Project. This vast Mount Sinai research effort will ask for donations of DNA in order to find individuals who have managed to stay healthy despite rare genetic mutations that, according to the medical textbooks, should have predisposed them to catastrophic illness.