The Division of Precision and Computational Diagnostics was established in light of the technological advances and innovations in clinical genomics and bioinformatics that have made it possible to refine disease diagnoses and prognoses, as well as define predictive genetic biomarkers for precision therapies. These approaches mark a significant shift toward individualized and targeted health care.
The current advent of massively parallel (next generation sequencing) approaches for the large-scale interrogation of genetic variation is an enabling disruptive development that has revolutionized the field of nucleic acid-based diagnostics and provides the foundational basis for diagnosis and management of diseases, ranging from inherited diseases to infectious disease and cancer.
Penn Medicine has long been a leader in this field: in 1985, the Molecular Pathology Laboratory was founded as one of the first of its kind at a university hospital in the country. Penn was also among the first Molecular Pathology training programs in the country in the early 1990s and was one of the first two programs to obtain ACGME accreditation in 2002 after molecular genetic pathology (MGP) became a recognized subspecialty.
Immune Health®
The latest developments are in Immune Health®, a Penn Medicine program that includes comprehensive medical clinical services that are structured on a biomarker analyses process of a patient’s immune system to drive diagnostic, prevention, and treatment decisions across a variety of health conditions.
Center for Personalized Diagnostics
The Center for Personalized Diagnostics (CPD), a joint initiative between Penn Medicine's Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the Abramson Cancer Center, integrates molecular genetics, pathology informatics, genomic pathology for individualized patient diagnoses and to guide cancer treatment options for physicians. The CPD offers genome-wide diagnostics to identify the specific tumor characteristics for each patient. Since its founding in 2013, more than 9,000 reports have been issued.
Molecular Pathology Laboratory
The Molecular Pathology Laboratory is a full-service diagnostic laboratory that performs cutting-edge clinical molecular tests for a variety of clinical indications.
Cytogenetics Laboratory
This laboratory performs chromosome analysis in diagnosing and classifying leukemias and other hematologic disorders.