A Biobank for the Americas and a Genomics Lab Power Precision Health for All - Seite 2
When Bustamante started the company, less than 1% of biobank samples that existed worldwide were from Latin American populations. The overwhelming majority-about 90%-were from individuals of European ancestry. And considering that over 650 million Latin Americans represent more than 700 ethnic groups across 33 countries, Bustamante saw the potential to understand and improve their health outcomes.
The genetics of those populations and individuals are recorded in the Biobank of the Americas-a key part of Galatea's business and vision. The CAP-accredited biobank has the capacity to house 10 million DNA samples. Galatea uses Illumina NovaSeq 6000 and NextSeq 2000 Systems to sequence genomes. In the near future, Bustamante is looking forward to sequencing genomes on Illumina's newly released NovaSeq X Plus System.
Galatea worked with hospitals that were collecting nasal swabs from patients coming in for COVID-19. These so-called COVID discards were invaluable for Bustamante's team. The swabs were already stored in a medium that readily allowed researchers to extract and sequence the DNA. The original research team at Stanford and Chan Zuckerberg built an AI/machine learning model that included clinical, genomic, and epidemiological features to predict COVID severity.
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Galatea has since expanded to partner with blood banks and hospitals in Colombia, Paraguay, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and throughout Latin America to collect genetic samples. Bustamante is especially interested in using this genetic information to understand how responsive a patient will be to a particular drug. For instance, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans bookend the spectrum when it comes to asthma rates in the Americas: Puerto Ricans have the highest asthma rates while Mexicans have the lowest. Puerto Ricans also have the lowest response to albuterol, which is the most prescribed medication for asthma. Bustamante says that a person's response to the drug depends on a combination of environment, genes, and possibly epigenetics: "We're trying to work with groups that are interested in these kinds of problems, and eventually improve the compendium of medications that can benefit everybody."