About PCPGM

The Partners HealthCare Center for Personalized Genetic Medicine (PCPGM) was launched in 2001 as the Harvard Medical School-Partners HealthCare Center for Genetics and Genomics. Its new name was adopted in late 2008. Its purposes from its founding have been to promote genetics and genomics in research and clinical medicine and to help realize the promise of personalized medicine by accelerating the integration of genetic knowledge into clinical care. PCPGM is accomplishing its mission by supporting and facilitating:

  • Important discoveries in the genomics era that will enable advancing the knowledge of how genetics affects human health and disease.
  • The transformation of the practice of medicine to a more genetics/genomics-based approach.
  • The training of future generations of physicians and scientists in genetics and genomics.
  • The education of practicing clinicians, investigators, health care professionals, patients and the general public through the development of educational programs, materials and supportive infrastructure.

The Interim Scientific Director of PCPGM is Scott T. Weiss, M.D. He is the Director of the Center for Genomic Medicine and the Director of Bioinformatics of the Biomedical Research Institute of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and he also is Associate Director of BWH’s Channing Laboratory. At the Channing Dr. Weiss currently leads a research group of over 25 investigators and 110 support staff performing 72 separate research projects, predominantly in the field of asthma genetics, asthma pharmacogenomics, COPD genetics and in predictive medicine, with over $50 million in NIH grant funding. He is the author or co-author of over 500 publications.