Precision Medicine at Penn's Center for Personalized Diagnostics 

Unlike other labs, Penn Medicine's Center for Personalized Diagnostics (CPD), tests for multiple mutations in your patient's cancer. We can pinpoint the relationships between cancer and the cells around it and then identify precise, targeted and individualized therapies that can dramatically alter your patient's course of treatment. Our genomic counselors deliver highly detailed, easy-to-read reporting and will work with you to ensure you make the best decisions. And we're one of only a few labs in the U.S. to offer gene mutation panels for leukemia. The CPD services include:   

• A CAP/CLIA certified clinical laboratory for high throughput, next-generation DNA sequencing and other genomic analyses to provide diagnostic tests to clients within and beyond Penn Medicine
• A clinically oriented research group with a focus on developing new tools for personalized diagnostics, new methods for data analysis, particularly of the large volumes of data derived from massively parallel "-omics" technologies, and on collaborating to gather data correlating diagnostic information with patient outcomes
• A test development laboratory for generating additional clinical diagnostic tests that fall within the realm of personalized medicine in order to translate research into the clinical environment
• A clinical and translational education service for trainees as well as established pathologists and clinicians to guide them through this highly complex, rapidly evolving field and to aid in the understanding and implementation of genomic medicine

The Center for Personalized Diagnostics currently offers five different cancer gene-sequencing panels:

•  A hematologic malignancy panel, covering 68 genes focused primarily on Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and chronic lymphocytic leuchemia (CLL)
•  A comprehensive solid tumor panel, covering the entire coding region of 158 genes known to be mutated in a wide range of tumor types
•  The Penn Precision Panel (PPP), covering hotspots in 20 genes, intended for limited specimens that do not provide sufficient DNA for the more comprehensive solid tumor panel
•  A Translocation Panel, covering oncogenic RNA transcripts (fusion transcripts and aberrant splice-forms) in solid tumors
•  A BRCA Founder Variant Panel, covering known founder variants in BRCA1 and BRCA2

Since the launch of operations in February 2013, the CPD has performed advanced diagnostics in more than 10,000 clinical tests, representing a wide range of cancers: 24% lung cancer, 21% gastrointestinal cancers, 15% acute myeloid leukemia, 13% brain cancers, 8% melanoma, 19% other cancers (breast, thyroid, other).

To find out more, visit the Center for Personalized Diagnostics website.