Marshfield Clinic Creates Nation’s Largest Population-Based Biobank
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What if your doctor could type basic information about you into a computer and immediately tell you not only your recommended dose for a given medication, but also how your body is likely to respond?
Improper prescription errors could be avoided, you could be given the right drug the first time, and you could plan from the outset how to address any side effects that might occur.
In Marshfield, this level of customized health care is closer than you think.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” says Catherine McCarty, Ph.D., M.P.H., principal investigator for the project. “But here in rural Wisconsin, we are respected around the world as leaders because of what’s called a biobank that we have – the Personalized Medicine Research Project.”
In 2002, the project began with an effort to convince everyone at least 18 years old in 19 zip codes surrounding Marshfield to be a part of the biobank, which today contains DNA, plasma and serum samples for roughly 20,000 people. The database, which also draws information from medical records, is the largest population-based biobank in the nation.
With such highly sensitive information being stored, security and privacy are utmost priorities for project participants, says McCarty, herself a member of the biobank.
The project covers two umbrellas of research: one studying how genetics predict a person’s response, good or bad, to a given medication; and two, how genes and environmental or personal exposures interact to increase the rise of development and progression of disease. Between the two research umbrellas, 20 different projects are under way at all different phases ranging from design to clinical testing.
The research includes work by everyone from epidemiologists to statisticians to health economists. Ultimately, the goal is to provide information to physicians in a usable format.
“We have shared lab space with the clinical production lab, so it should be a seamless transition from research through to the clinical lab when it’s time to transfer from research to having the tests available clinically,” McCarty says.
The project also relies on a 20-member community advisory group, which includes members from dairy farmers to a state legislator, to discuss issues of importance to consumers.
“People chose to get involved, for the most part, for altruistic reasons. People want to make a difference. An individual, right here in central Wisconsin, can be involved in research that is potentially going to make this big of a difference for clinical care,” McCarty says. “It’s exciting to be a part of it in all aspects, and to feel like right here, in the middle of nowhere, we are making this impact on scientific discovery and, hopefully, sooner rather than later, on health-care delivery for everyone.”
Story by Michaela Jackson
