Why has the Clinical Genetics service changed its name?
The Clinical Genetics service has evolved rapidly over the past 10 years and is already providing excellent genomic medicine services for patients across Merseyside, Cheshire, the Isle of Man and beyond – the change of name to the Liverpool Centre for Genomic Medicine simply reflects the high standard of clinical care already being provided.
How services are delivered will not change so patients and staff might not notice anything different. In the last few years, the application of genetics and genomics to medicine has rapidly expanded. Genomics is now relevant to every single branch of medicine, from the drugs prescribed, to understanding cancer, heart disease and dementia, to patients and families making informed choices about tests and individual risks.
Dr Emma McCann, Clinical Director for Clinical Support Services, said: “Although subtle, this is a very positive change in mind-set for our centre and better reflects the scope of our services and expertise. It will align our service with other Centres for Genomic Medicine across England as the medical specialty of Genomics continues to evolve. We will keep working collaboratively with all the clinical teams and NHS Trusts that we currently integrate with, in order to provide seamless, joined-up healthcare and excellent health outcomes for patients and families. We also aspire to further integrate research, innovation and collaboration, with health professionals and families, to provide the best that personalised genomic medicine can offer.”
The newly named Liverpool Centre for Genomic Medicine will continue to strive to:
Combine innovative ways of working with advanced technologies to provide the highest-quality genomic healthcare in a flexible, responsive way, translated to the patients and clinicians who need it - where they need it, when they need it.
The difference between ‘Genetics’ and ‘Genomics’
A person’s genome is all their genetic material and is like a large library and represents a huge amount of data. A gene is a small amount of DNA and is like a specific book in the library.
The World Health Organisation tells us the difference between Genetics and Genomics is that genetics looks at the functioning and make-up of a single gene whereas genomics looks at all genes and their relationships. By testing multiple different parts of a person’s genome all at the same time, results can be communicated back to patients sensitively and quickly, allowing genomics clinicians to work with colleagues in other medical specialties to apply these results accurately to an individual patient’s medical care.
