In addition to studying the impact of genetics on warfarin dosing, Harvard-Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics (HPCGG) seeks to examine whether a patient’s metabolomic profile might also increase the likelihood of dosing warfarin correctly.
Patient samples for the study are being collected as part of the ongoing Partners HealthCare ‘CReating an Optimal Warfarin Nomogram’ (CROWN) trial, which is a prospective dosing study utilizing genetic testing to determine the optimal warfarin dose and how this information can be used for clinical care. Sample collection for the diagnostic development should be complete early summer 2008, with the metabolomic analysis being conducted by Metabolon thereafter.
Partners HealthCare investigators have also received preferred access to Metabolon’s global biochemical profiling platform. These services provide for the extraction, identification and quantitation of hundreds of small molecule biochemicals in a given biological sample. Significantly altered metabolites are then highlighted in extensive biochemical interpretation provided by Metabolon scientists.
Raju Kucherlapati, director at HPCGG said: “Metabolon’s biomarker discovery platform gives us the opportunity to find biochemical markers that along with genetic variations might help characterize the differences between patients’s metabolism of warfarin.”