New CHOP Center Enlists 'Big Data' to Help Little Patients -- PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 26, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 26, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new scientific center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) aims to harness and broadly share biomedical information to more quickly benefit child patients. The Center for Data Driven Discovery in Biomedicine has the goal of advancing precision medicine—helping to match the most appropriate treatment to individual patients. Much of its effort will target highly specific, even unique, biological abnormalities in childhood cancers, but the center will also focus on other rare pediatric diseases. The center will be the first of its kind with a pediatric focus. "The genomics revolution ushered in by the first sequencing of the human genome early last decade is a watershed moment in discovery, opening up ever-growing paths to new disease treatments," said Adam Resnick, Ph.D., an expert in brain tumors and founding director of the new center. "However, the challenge of 'big data' lies in accessing, harnessing and sharing this flood of information, especially for pediatrics."