BUILDING BRIDGES TO THE FUTURE
By Laura Bishop

Coriell Institute for Medical Research is poised to build on its outstanding international reputation and status as a human cell repository, and move to the forefront of the exciting forward march of genomic medicine, thus contributing more directly to advances in medical research. 

Michael F. Christman, Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer

It’s been just six months since Michael F. Christman, Ph.D. was named president and CEO of Coriell Institute for Medical Research, an esteemed scientific institution, which for nearly 55 years has built and maintained a solid, but quiet reputation based on its accomplishments in genetics research and cell banking.   

But under Dr. Christman’s leadership, the time for “quiet” at Coriell has drawn to a close.

Dr. Christman brings renewed energy and enthusiasm to this revered, internationally recognized institution based in Camden. With an entrepreneurial spirit, he is successfully linking Coriell’s storied past with its promising future, further solidifying the Institute as an international leader in scientific research, discovery and knowledge, with a particular focus on the emerging science of genomics research that will lead to the development of personalized medicine.

“What I’m most excited about in my leadership role at Coriell is working to build a bridge from genetics research in the laboratory to clinical medicine – termed personalized medicine,” said Dr. Christman. “It’s an initiative that is going to revolutionize medical care over the next five to ten years.”

An expert in genetics and genomics, since 2001 and just prior to joining Coriell, Dr. Christman served as professor and founding chair, Department of Genetics and Genomics at Boston University School of Medicine. In that prestigious role, he recruited the majority of primary faculty in the genetics and genomics department and led an international team of scientists that performed one of the first genome-wide scans to associate human genetic variation with disease.
 
Now, Dr. Christman proposes to “position Coriell at the forefront of the exciting forward march of genomic medicine which will identify human genetic variation that contributes to diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.” 

“The Institute was built on a foundation of being at the forefront of research that directly applied to medical care,” said Christman. “Dr. Coriell’s major role in the development of cell cultures for the Salk polio vaccine and bringing it to the public being the most well known example. With personalized medicine, Coriell has come full circle.”

The Case for Personalized Medicine

Differences in genetic profile determine about half of an individual’s predisposition to particular diseases. The other half is determined by our environment – what we eat, whether or not we exercise, how we take care of ourselves and what we’re exposed to in the air, for example.  It’s the half that is genetically based that Coriell researchers are most interested in studying.

Explained Dr. Christman, “Right now we’re at a unique time in human history, because we don’t know what almost any of those variants are that affect disease.  They’re being discovered day by day.”

Dr. Christman’s lofty, but achievable goal is to partner with hospitals throughout the Delaware Valley to ask patient volunteers to consent to have their genetic profiles determined.  The approach will be similar to a study Dr. Christman led as professor and founding chair of the Department of Genetics and Genomics for Boston University School of Medicine.

Dr. Coriell’s work in the 1940’s was a harbinger of a new era in medical care when vaccines to combat a wide range of diseases significantly improved public health worldwide.

Similarly, the completion of the human genome sequence and more recently the understanding of patterns of human genetic variation through the International HapMap project have unlocked the door to scientific breakthroughs and a new level of knowledge about the causes of human diseases such as cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s. In a relatively short period of time, personalized medicine has come of age and it will dramatically and fundamentally change medical practice in the next five to ten years.

Dr. Christman’s excitement about and commitment to this cutting edge initiative stems, in part from his belief that it will work due to Coriell’s strengths:

• A new high throughput center for performing genome profiles;
• Close and outstanding partnerships with hospitals throughout the Delaware Valley;
• It’s well set up as a biorepository capable to manage and ensure quality control of huge amounts of biomaterials like blood and DNA;
• Sophisticated technological capabilities – the projects will also generate huge amounts of information that can’t be put on a CD or stored and analyzed with a typical computer;
• The Institute’s researchers, who will be joined by renowned scientists who are experts in conducing dense genotyping and analyzing data, including the work done on the Framingham Heart Study.

“Coriell can be a pioneer in this personalized medicine effort that will integrate our genetic knowledge with a hospital’s medical records of patients who volunteer to have their genetic profiles determined,” enthused Dr. Christman. 

The Delaware Valley Personalized Medicine Project

The Delaware Valley Personalized Medicine Project© is a forward thinking, joint effort involving patient volunteers, physicians, scientists, ethicists and information technology experts. The goal of the project is to better understand the coming impact of genome-informed medical practice or personalized medicine and to guide its ethical, legal and responsible implementation. The aim is to allow patients to benefit from the advances in genome-informed medical practice, while ensuring that patient privacy is vigorously protected.

Coriell has established a state of the art genotyping resource and formed close partnerships with several Delaware Valley hospitals, including neighboring Cooper University Hospital to enroll patient volunteers in a research study that will correlate individual patient genome profiles with disease course and treatment outcomes.

“This is the reason for the human genome project. It wasn’t just to count how many genes there are in a human. The real importance was to understand how one person differs from the next and what small fraction of those variations may elevate an individuals risk to common diseases like heart disease and cancer, the number one and two killers in the U.S. with the ultimate goal of prevention and cures.”