Laboratory for Molecular Medicine
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Email: LMM@partners.org
Call: 617-768-8500
Enabling clinical adoption of personalized genetic medicine
The Laboratory for Molecular Medicine (LMM) is led by a group of Harvard Medical School-affiliated faculty, geneticists, clinicians, and researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, Mass General Brigham’s founding members.
Our mission is to bridge the gap between research and clinical medicine by remaining focused on the following:
- Leading the implementation of advanced technologies and practices into molecular diagnostic testing
- Accelerating the adoption of new molecular tests into clinical care
- Incorporating information technology (IT) support into the day-to-day operations of the clinical laboratory
- Advancing clinical care with our participation in innovative programs, aiming to keep physicians current on and knowledgeable of genetic information relevant to their patients
Through this work, the LMM is taking the promise of personalized medicine from the lab and into the clinic. Each year, we provide services to more than 4,000 patients and their physicians through over 100 targeted genetic tests, whole gene sequencing, and now, whole exome sequencing. From detecting presymptomatic heart conditions such as cardiomyopathy (PanCardiomyopathy Panel), to tests for genetic-based hearing loss in children (OtoGenomeTM), we are working with researchers and physicians to make a difference in the lives of patients.
Comprehensive testing services
Learn about our available tests
Why work with us?
At the LMM, we tackle the toughest challenges associated with the advancement and adoption of personalized medicine. As innovative leaders, we build solutions from the ground up. LMM incorporates scientific discoveries and breakthrough technologies into our clinical laboratory to provide the most comprehensive genetic information.
- Comprehensive testing: We offer multiple panels in disease areas, as well as genome and exome sequencing to help end the diagnostic odyssey. By offering panels that test across clinical presentation we can improve the chance that clinicians and patients will find the disease-causing gene variants.
- Advanced infrastructure: Our GeneInsight® information technology (IT) platform – one of the most advanced systems in the industry – streamlines the management, sharing, and interpretation of vast amounts of genetic data. The system facilitates the process of generating concise, patient specific and consistent reports and helps the laboratory continuously improve its variant classification.
- Meaningful reports: We provide comprehensive, accurate, evidence-based reports that are developed by a team of experts and are clinically meaningful. We believe that high-quality clinical reports are essential for the integration of genetic knowledge into clinical practice. Our specialists are available to assist with interpretation of results.
- Real-time clinical updates: As our knowledge base on genetic variants grows over time, we share this new information with you through GeneInsight Clinic®. We update clinicians as new information emerges on variants identified in patient profiles.
- A team of experts: Our reputation for scientific leadership and quality is a direct result of our people. All of our lab directors hold faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School and actively pursue clinical research.
- Knowledge sharing: Our network infrastructure facilitates interconnectivity among genetic testing laboratories and clinicians. This functionality also supports the formation of inter-laboratory collaborations and knowledge sharing, and that enable laboratories to share knowledge, essential to new discoveries to improve patient care.
Learn how to work with us
Frequently asked questions
GeneInsight
Clinical research projects and knowledge sharing
The Clinical Genome Resource (ClinGen) is a consortium of three NHGRI-funded grants working in partnership with the ClinVar database at NCBI, dedicated to harnessing both research data and the data from the hundreds of thousands of clinical genetics tests performed each year, and supporting expert curation to determine which variants are most relevant to patient care. Heidi Rehm, PhD, FACMG, chief genomics officer at Mass General, is a principal investigator of one of the three grants.
The goals of ClinGen include to:
- Standardize clinical assessment of variants and deposition into the ClinVar
- Improve algorithms for variant interpretation
- Develop a consensus process for identifying clinically relevant variants
- Curate genes and variants within multiple clinical domains
- Build a publicly available portal for disseminating consensus information on clinically relevant genomic variants
- Explore ways to integrate genomic information into electronic health records
The Laboratory for Molecular Medicine fully supports public data sharing and has already contributed more than 24,000 variants and full interpretations to ClinVar.
Genome sequence-based screening for childhood risk and newborn illness
The LMM supports the interpretation of genomes in a new study to implement and evaluate the clinical use of rapid genome sequencing as an adjunct to newborn screening. This project is co-led by Robert Green, MD, MPH, the associate director for research and Alan Beggs from Boston Children’s Hospital.
Hearing and vision in infants with Usher syndrome mutations
The LMM is participating in a study to examine the early auditory, visual, and vestibular function of deaf and hearing-impaired infants and young children who receive a genetic diagnosis of Usher syndrome before vision loss. This project is led by Margaret Kenna, MD, and Anne Fulton, MD, from Boston Children’s Hospital, and Heidi Rehm, PhD, FACMG, chief genomics officer at Mass General.
Refining IT support for genetics in medicine
The LMM and GeneInsight® teams have been involved in a project led by David Bates from Brigham and Women’s Hospital to evaluate the usability and effectiveness of the GeneInsight® Clinic software for supporting the use of genetic information in patient care.
New methods and enhanced software for predicting functional SNPs
The LMM is collaborating with Shamil Sunyeav’s laboratory to improve the accuracy of PolyPhen by introducing new computational strategies for prediction of the effect of SNPs on protein structure and function, as well as to extend the prediction method to non-coding SNPs. The goal is to incorporate these developments into a new version of the PolyPhen software system.