The Precision Medicine Clinical Laboratory is a CLIA/CAP-accredited facility for human molecular genetic testing. Our main goal is to provide high quality, reproducible clinical results to support patient care decision-making and management, and translational clinical research.

The Precision Medicine Clinical Laboratory is staffed by two licensed, registered Medical Technologists who perform cancer molecular testing using the Illumina TruSight Oncology (TSO500) platform for solid tumors. This is a Next-Generation Sequencing-based clinical test that interrogates 523 genes that are known drivers or associated with cancer formation and metastasis. This test detects small nucleotide variants (SNV), insertions/deletions (indels), fusions, splice variants, and copy number changes from FFPE tumor specimens, while also reporting overall tumor mutational burden (TMB) and microsatellite instability (MSI). Variant interpretation is powered by the Velsera Clinical Genomics Workspace knowledgebase to generate clinical reports to help guide medical oncology patient management.

The Precision Medicine Clinical Laboratory also performs research-grade RT-PCR testing for SARS-CoV-2 and viral sequencing (COVID-seq) to identify variants of concern in the SARS-CoV-2 virus in collaboration with BioInfoExperts under a contract from the Center for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

Judy Crabtree, PhD, SMB(ASCP)^CM
Technical Supervisor
Clinical Sciences Research Building, Room 623A

precisionmedlab@lsuhsc.edu

The Precision Medicine Clinical Laboratory is equipped with an Illumina NextSeq550Dx DNA sequencer, a Tecan Fluent 1080 automated pipetting workstation, a Qiagen QiaCube Classic, a Qiagen QiaCube Connect, a BioRad CFX96 RT-PCR machine, an Agilent Bioanalyzer and a Covaris Sonicator to support clinical oncology testing and SARS-CoV-2 research assays.

The Precision Medicine Clinical Laboratory is supported by the SOM Dean’s Office and implements a charge back system where clinical partners are charged a fee-for-service based on negotiated Medicare/Medicaid/private insurance reimbursement rates. The Precision Medicine Clinical Laboratory does not do direct patient or insurance billing. Similarly, any research performed for LSUHSC investigators will be charged back to grants through iLabs.

The Precision Medicine Clinical Laboratory is located on the 6^th floor of the Clinical Sciences Research Building in rooms 616, 620, 621 and 625.