Clinical director named for genomic health center

Michael F. Murray, MD, has been appointed director for clinical operations at the Center for Genomic Health being developed jointly by the medical school and Yale New Haven Hospital. The center is dedicated to improving patient care through the use of genomic analysis, particularly in the areas of risk identification and disease prevention.

Murray will oversee the launch of new bio-repository that will seek the consent of approximately 100,000 patients to an effort that sequences their DNA code and links it to their electronic medical records. The effort will have a two-fold purpose. The first is “discovery” through the use of these data by investigators, who, without patient identifiers, can analyze medical history as linked with genetic code. The second is “improved care” by returning data to patients and their providers, that they might not otherwise know about but that can be used now to improve their medical management.

With regard to discovery, “researchers will be able to study very specific cohorts of patients in order to find new risk factors and potentially new treatments based on the changes in DNA that link to medical history,” says Murray.

Murray comes to Yale from Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania, where he served as director of clinical genomics in the Genomic Medicine Institute and professor at the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine.

“We are very happy to welcome Dr. Murray to our institution and excited about the collaboration with Yale New Haven Hospital to move genetic research forward,” says Robert J. Alpern, MD, dean and Ensign Professor of Medicine. “Yale School of Medicine has been a pioneer in genetics since establishing the first department of genetics in a U.S. medical school in 1972.”