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10 Clinical OMICs November/December 2017 www.clinicalomics.com E very now and then, I find it is helpful to simply clear my mind of a collec- tion of random seemingly unrelated thoughts from my work as an editor and observer of the world of "omics" and precision medicine. IT SEEMS I'VE BEEN HEARING a lot lately about the coming age of genomic medicine as a practice that will be every day and routine. In some instances it is already, notably in cancer care and increasingly—and encouragingly—in the diagnosis of rare pediatric diseases. (See our page 16 story on Rady Children's Hospi- tal). But these successes don't mean we are necessarily on the cusp of all doctors considering genomic information as a valuable resource in their treatment armament. As recently as last year, in a survey conducted for STAT News by healthcare social networking site Sermo, nearly three-quarters of doctors (73 percent) said they had not advised a patient to get their genome sequenced. Further, 74 percent of doctors still feel family history would be more informative in diagnosing a patient than a genomic test. While one could argue that genomic testing might not yet be able to pro- vide the kind of picture doctors can glean across the breadth of health issues they can with a medical history, these results do show that much more edu- cation is needed in the clinical setting before doctors come to view genomic information as useful as, say, an X-ray. SPEAKING OF RADY CHILDREN'S and the work of Stephen Kingsmore, it seems with costs now under $1,000 and declining for whole-genome sequencing, and no longer a significant barrier, the need for speed to result is becoming a significant factor. Currently, the team at Rady can generate a provisional diagnosis in about two days for the sickest of newborns, perfor- mance that promises to become both faster and cheaper with the hospital's recent adoption of Illumina's NovaSeq 6000. When it comes to genomic speeding, Edico Genome often seems to be in the middle of things. A couple of years ago, the company was instrumental in helping Kingsmore set the world record for fastest genetic diagnosis at 26 hours. At ASHG this year in Orlando, FL, the company was again pressed firmly on the accelerator, this time working with Children's Hospital of Philal- delphia to set a new world record for processing whole human genomes into data files usable by researchers. Tapping into 1,000 Amazon EC2 F1 instances on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud, the collaborators set a record of 1,000 genomes processed in two hours and twenty-five minutes. Why this need for speed? Well, when it comes to newborns who are very sick with an unknown disease, genomics can provide clinically actionable infor- mation in about one-quarter of the cases. And in many instances, where these babies may only have days to live without treatment, faster results save more lives. And that is what genomic medicine is all about. Emptying the Drawer of the Editorial Mind FROM THE EDITOR Chris Anderson Editor in Chief Publisher & CEO MARY ANN LIEBERT President MARIANNE RUSSELL Group Publisher SANDE GIACCONE Editor in Chief CHRIS ANDERSON EVP, Strategic Development KEVIN DAVIES Commercial Director BILL LEVINE Production Editor ROBERT M. REIS Senior Editor KEVIN MAYER Technical Editor JEFFREY S. BUGULISKIS, Ph.D. Senior News Editor ALEX PHILIPPIDIS Chief Copy Editor STEVEN HERNACKI Contributing Editors HELEN ALBERT, MALORYE BRANCA, MEGHAAN FERREIRA, DIANA KWON Art Director JAMES LAMBO Online Product Manager THOMAS MATHEW Associate Director of Brand Marketing JENNIFER GATTI Online Editorial Supervisor KATHERINE VUKSANAJ Design & Layout NORA WERTZ Advertising Sales Manager DENIS SEGER US West & Asia Pacific (dseger@clinicalomics.com / 760-518-5222) Advertising Sales Manager LARRY MAHER US East, UK, & Europe (lmaher@clinicalomics.com / 312-342-0849) Sales Administrator FALLON MURPHY Advertising Material WANDA SANCHEZ (wsanchez@liebertpub.com) Clinical OMICs Advisory Board DANIEL H. FARKAS, Ph.D., HCLD Chief Clinical Laboratory Officer, Celmatix JEFFREY GIBBS, J.D. Director, Hyman, Phelps, and McNamara PETER HARRSCH, Ph.D. Executive Clinical/Forensic Specialist, Waters Corp. ROGER KLEIN, M.D., J.D. Medical Director, Molecular Pathology, Cleveland Clinic JASON PARK, M.D., Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Dept. of Pathology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center STEPHEN C. PEIPER, M.D. Professor & Chair, Dept. of Pathology, Anatomy & Cell Biology, Thomas Jefferson University AMIT RASTOGI Senior Vice President, Strategy, Growth, and Innovation, Inova DAVID SMITH, Ph.D. Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Mayo Clinic KIMBERLY STRONG, Ph.D. Director, Program in Genomics and Ethics, Medical College of Wisconsin LARRY WORDEN Vice President and Senior Partner, Market Diagnostics International The views, opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations set forth in any article in Clinical OMICs are solely those of the authors of those articles and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy, or position of Clinical OMICs, its Publisher, or its editorial staff and should not be attributed to any of them. All advertisements are subject to review by the Publisher. The acceptance of advertisements does not constitute an endorsement of the product or service advertised. Clinical OMICs (ISSN-2334-1351) is published online bimonthly by GEN Publishing, 140 Huguenot St., 3rd Floor, New Rochelle, NY 10801-5215. For subscription information go to: www.clinicalomics.com Copyright © 2017 by GEN Publishing, New Rochelle, NY