Announcing the start-up of the TexGen project at a Dec. 5, 2001 press conference in the Texas Medical Center are (from left): Dr. John Mendelsohn, president of the UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center; Dr. James T. Willerson, president of the UT Health Science Center at Houston; Dr. Ralph Feigin, president and CEO of Baylor College of Medicine; and Dr. Eric Boerwinkle, director of the Research Center for Human Genetics at UT-Houston's Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases. (PHOTO by Jennifer Canup, copyright 2001, University of Texas Health Science Center)

TexGen Project

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

The TexGen research project collects clinical and genetic data that will serve as a resource for future genetic and medical research at the Texas Medical Center. This is a longitudinal project that serves as a repository for the collection and storage of biological material (blood and tissue) and the associated clinical data over the lifespan of the patient. The project planning began as a result of the vision of leaders at the Texas Medical Center and of community leaders who made this project a reality through their ongoing financial support. The Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest medical center, is making advances in the knowledge of the human genome from the laboratory bench to the hospital bedside. The Human Genome Project continues to provide the raw sequence of the human genome, and scientists at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas Heart Institute, Baylor College of Medicine and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center are using this sequence to identify genes leading to cardiovascular disease, the number one cause of sickness and death in the United States. Hospitals in the Texas Medical Center are premier institutions for the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease and together lead the world in heart-related medical procedures. The TexGen Resource will be combined with state-of–the-art genomics and proteomics efforts developing at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas Heart Institute, Baylor College of Medicine and the MD Anderson Cancer Center to achieve the objectives of determining the genetic variation in disease prediction, disease mechanisms, surgical response, drug response, readmission, second events and survival.

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