University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) Consultant Cardiologist William Bradlow is an enthusiastic supporter of the 100,000 Genomes Project – with a number of his patients having been recruited to the initiative by the West Midlands Genomic Medicine Centre team.

Dr Bradlow specialises in cardiac imaging and manages patients with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) – an inherited heart condition which is one of the rare diseases being targeted by the nationwide programme.

“There is a really strong motivation for these patients to get involved,” he said. “It’s a chronic condition which has serious, potentially fatal, complications so when the chance arose to be involved I was very keen.

“At present there is no cure for HCM, but treatments are available to help control the symptoms and prevent complications.

“Treatments for individuals will depend on how their heart is affected and what symptoms they have. If we can learn more about an individual’s condition, we are better placed to be able to personalise the care we give, which means a better outcome for the patient.

 “I have been involved in the project for about a year now and for me it has been a really positive experience as I hadn’t had a huge amount of exposure to genomics before.”

As well as the potential for advances in diagnosis and treatment, Dr Bradlow says the project will also improve the way patient data and information is gathered, recorded and, potentially, shared.

“One of the things that I have found really powerful about the project is the fact that it’s encouraged us to organise information from disparate sources,” he went on. “That data in itself has huge value for re-use in all sorts of other areas.

“We are looking to try to share relevant information in a way that respects privacy but also that facilitates patient care. It creates a tremendous resource for researchers in the future.

“This is the launch pad for the delivery of true personalised medicine which won’t just be for rare diseases and cancers, the next phase will be the more common conditions too.”