‘New era’ of treatment via DNA arriving in UK

Hospitals across England will be able to analyse and interpret patients’ DNA on a bigger scale from the autumn to help diagnose rare diseases and find more effective individual treatments.

People with cancer will have the tumour DNA screened for mutations that could help doctors find the best drug to use. And broad sequencing will be available to babies and children who are admitted to intensive care without a diagnosis, The Guardian reported.

“We are ushering in a new era of genomic health,” said Mark Caulfield, chief scientist at Genomic England and professor of cardiovascular genetics at the William Harvey Research Institute in London. “This is a big step.”