Put It on the Board

Create PDF

AMP issues genetic variant data sharing recommendations

August 2021—The Association for Molecular Pathology on July 29 called on all relevant individuals and organizations to support and facilitate the sharing of molecular genetic variant data and offered recommendations.

Participation in data sharing among clinical laboratories continues to remain low, the AMP says in its position statement, despite the availability of public databases, multiple recommendations, and calls to action, as well as incentives to contribute to them. The NIH’s ClinGen resource reports that as of January 2020 only 15 clinical labs within the U.S. met their minimum requirements for data sharing to be recognized in the program, according to the AMP.

“Thus, information that is vital to the advancement of molecular pathology and improvement of patient care continues to be siloed,” the AMP says.

In its position statement, the AMP provides recommendations for organizations, institutions, and companies; for operators of public databases; and for clinical laboratories. Two of its four recommendations for clinical labs are as follows: They should assign dedicated personnel to interface between shared sequence databases and diagnostic genetic test result platforms, and they should gain a better understanding of the clinical relevance of variants in different populations.

The full position statement is at https://bit.ly/AMP-var-data.

FDA clears MSI analysis system

The FDA has cleared Promega’s Onco­Mate MSI Dx Analysis System for determining microsatellite instability status in colorectal cancer tumors.