Funding will be distributed over the next five years to support the Utah NeoSeq Project, which provides rapid genetic diagnosis to critically ill infants, and the Penelope Project, which researches rare and undiagnosed diseases in children, according to a Nov. 2 news release.
“This support is a wonderful gift to families and science. It will help grow the program so that it becomes part of the broader pipeline that goes from diagnosis to searching for new treatments,” said Lorenzo Botto, MD, principal investigator for the Penelope Program and professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah Health.
The financial gift will allow the NeoSeq project to test more neonatal intensive care unit infants and allow researchers to conduct more extensive genomic sequencing leading to better detection of rare genetic disorders. Additionally, the Penelope Program will be able to evaluate an additional 75 patients over the next five years, according to the release.
