Progress in Genomic Medicine Implementation: Research Priorities and Population Health Impact

Teri A. Manolio MD, PhD
Director, Division of Genomic Medicine,
National Human Genome Research Institute,
National Institutes for Health,
Bethesda, Maryland

As a physician and epidemiologist, Teri Manolio, M.D., Ph.D. has a deep interest in discovering genetic changes associated with diseases by conducting biomedical research on large groups of people. As the Director of the Division of Genomic Medicine, Dr. Manolio leads efforts to support research translating those discoveries into diagnoses, preventive measures, treatments and prognoses of health conditions. The research funded by the division applies analytic technologies to clinical problems of disease diagnosis and treatment to enable melding clinical and genomic research for rapid improvements in clinical care.
Dr. Manolio envisions a day when patients have ready access to affordable, reliable genetic tests enabling them to avoid rare, sometimes devastating complications of common drug treatments. She also hopes to find ways of using a patient’s genomic information to enhance diagnostic strategies and improve treatment outcomes by examining comprehensive databases of patients whose physical characteristics and genomic variants match those of the patient at hand.