The Columbia eMERGE initiative – called GENIE (GENomic Integration with EHR) – is open to all academic and private sector investigators interested in joining an open process to facilitate genomic research in biobanks with electronic medical records and application of genomic results to clinical care.
Current Columbia eMERGE projects focus on:
– Advancing next-generation phenotyping by designing, validating, and sharing high-throughput, data quality-aware, standards-based phenotyping methods.
– Performing genetic association studies of rare variants with diverse clinical phenotypes through broad collaboration with the eMERGE network and other phenotyping research communities.
– Developing practical, scalable learning mechanisms for returning results by leveraging a genomic patient portal and genetic providers to dynamically elicit and incorporate patient preferences for return of genomic results, returning results, and studying patient understanding of returned results.
– Providing genomic decision support by enhancing and validating our clinical and informatics infrastructure for genomic decision support with learning mechanisms for tailored shared decision-making between patients and health care providers.
Interested scientists and clinicians can join the Columbia eMERGE project in various ways, including contributing to ongoing studies on topics ranging from phenotyping to data integration to ethical implications. For more information, please CONTACT US!