The Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network is a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-organized and funded consortium of U.S. medical research institutions. The primary goal of the eMERGE Network is to develop, disseminate, and apply approaches to research that combine biorepositories with electronic medical record (EMR) systems for genomic discovery and genomic medicine implementation research. eMERGE was announced in June 2007 and began its third phase in September 2015. eMERGE Phase III (June 2015 - June 2020) consists of 10 study sites, two central sequencing and genotyping facilities, and a coordinating center.
Included in this study are: - Human Reference Consortium (HRC) single nucleotide variants and 1000 Genomes structural variants imputed array data of 105,108 eMERGE participants from nine Phase III study sites and three Phase II study site collaborators. - Corresponding demographics, body mass index measurements. - Case/control status for the following phenotypes: Abdominal aortic aneurysm; Ace-Inhibitor/Cough; Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder; Age-related macular disease; Appendicitis; Asthma; Atopic Dermatitis; Autism; Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia; Carotid artery disease as a Quantitative Measure; caMRSA; Cataract; Clostridium difficile colitis; Extreme Obesity; Chronic Kidney Disease; Chronic Kidney Disease and Type 2 Diabetes; Chronic Kidney Disease, Type 2 Diabetes and Hypertension; Colon Polyps; Cardiorespiratory Fitness; Dementia; Diverticulosis; Diabetic retinopathy; Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease; Glaucoma; Height; Heart failure; Hypothyroidism; Lipids; Ocular hypertension; Peripheral Arterial Disease; QRS duration; Red blood cell indices; Remission of Diabetes after ROUX-EN-Y gastric bypass surgery; Resistant hypertension; MACE while on Statins; Type 2 Diabetes; Venous Thromboembolism; White blood cell indices; and Zoster virus infection.
Study sites and participants include:
Boston Children's Hospital: The Gene Partnership (TGP) is a prospective longitudinal registry at Boston Children's Hospital (BCH) to study the genetic and environmental contributions to childhood health and disease, collect genetic information on a large number of children who have been phenotyped, and implement the Informed Cohort and the Informed Cohort Oversight Board (ICOB). The term "The Gene Partnership" reflects a partnership between researchers and participants. Children seen at BCH are offered enrollment, as are their parents and siblings. DNA is collected on all enrollees. BCH has a comprehensive EMR system, and virtually all inpatient and outpatient data are captured electronically. Clinical data in the BCH EMR is loaded in the i2b2 data warehouse which is available to investigators. Cases, phenotypes, and covariates are ascertained using the i2b2 database. Participants at BCH in TGP have consented to receive any research result and/or incidental finding that arises from studies using TGP that is approved by the Informed Cohort Oversight Board (ICOB) and is in accordance with the participants'preferences;results are returned through the Personally Controlled Health Record (PCHR). BCH and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) have partnered as the Pediatric Alliance for Genomic and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Research (PAGER) site for the eMERGE Phase II network for pediatric institutions, and the cohort for eMERGE at BCH is TGP.
Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania (CHOP): The Center for Applied Genomics (CAG) at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is a high-throughput, highly automated genotyping and sequencing facility equipped with state-of-the-art genotyping and sequencing platforms. Children who are treated at the Children's Hospital Healthcare Network and their parents may be eligible to take part in a major initiative to collect more than 100,000 blood samples, covering a wide range of pediatric diseases. A large majority of participants consenting to prospective genomic analyses also consent to analysis of their de-identified electronic health records (EHRs). EHRs are longitudinal, with a mean duration of 6.5 years.
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center/Boston's Children's Hospital (CCHMC/BCH): Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) is a pediatric institution dedicated to improving health and welfare of children and to the discovery and practical application of new genomic information to the ordinary care of children. CCHMC brings an extraordinary faculty to eMERGE III who are committed to gain a better understanding of the genesis of disease and to elucidate the mechanisms of diseases that afflict children, specifically pediatric disease phenotypes that will leverage the available eMERGE adult genomic data and electronic medical records (EMRs) to discover meaningful use results. Generation of EMR phenotype algorithms, informed by natural language processing, using heuristic and machine learning methods is ongoing. CCHMC has developed tools to evaluate adolescent return of results preferences, examined the ethical and legal obligations and potential to reanalyze results, and developed clinical decision support for phenotyping, test ordering, and returning sequencing results. The success of these eMERGE III studies is enhanced by the ongoing institutional investment made in the CCHMC Biobank, the comprehensive EMR (EPIC), the i2b2 de-identified medical record data warehouse, and hundreds of faculty and senior staff who make genomics or informatics an active focus of their research.
Columbia University: Columbia University Medical Center/New York Presbyterian (CUMC/NYP) Hospital system is one of the nation's largest and most comprehensive hospital systems with over 2 million inpatient and outpatient yearly visits that serves a racially and ethnically diverse urban patient population. The Columbia University GENomic Integration with EHR (GENIE) research study contributed and shared phenotype and genotype data for individuals who were recruited as part of a diverse array of initiatives within the hospital, including Northern Manhattan Study (NOMAS), Pediatric Cardiac Genomic Consortium (PCGC), Caribbean Hispanics with Familial and Sporadic Late Onset Alzheimer's disease (AD), Alzheimer's Disease Sequencing Project (ADSP), and Genetics of Chronic Kidney Disease study. Some of these individuals had kidney or neurological problems, some were healthy adult volunteers with self-reported health status information from the medically underserved Northern Manhattan community, and others were pediatric patients with cardiac conditions. For the kidney disease cohort, patients with the diagnosis of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and healthy controls were recruited to the Columbia University CKD biobank. For the NOMAS cohort, eligible participants were stroke-free, were 40 years old, and resided for at least 3 months in a Northern Manhattan household with a telephone. The PCGC study recruited parent-offspring trios with pediatric probands diagnosed with congenital heart defects (CHD). For the Caribbean Hispanics with Alzheimer's disease project, individuals from families affected by AD and with sporadic AD were recruited, along with unrelated controls. Samples for the ADSP study have been selected from well-characterized cohorts of individuals with AD diagnosis.
Geisinger Health System: A research cohort of adult Geisinger Clinic patients was enrolled from community-based primary care clinics of the Geisinger Health System. Patients were eligible for enrollment if they were a primary care patient of a Geisinger Clinic physician and were scheduled for a non-emergent clinic visit. All participants provided written informed consent and HIPAA authorization. Consenting patients agreed to provide blood samples for broad biomedical research use, and permission to access data in their Geisinger electronic medical record for research. The enrollment rate was 90% of patients approached. The demographics of the cohort approximate those of the Geisinger Clinic outpatient population. Research blood samples were collected during an outpatient clinical phlebotomy encounter. Research blood samples are coded and stored in a central biorepository. Samples are linkable to clinical data in a de-identified manner for research via an IRB-approved data broker process. For genomic analysis, DNA is extracted from EDTA-anticoagulated whole blood.
Partners Health Care (Harvard): The Partners HealthCare Biobank is a large research program designed to help researchers understand how people's health is affected by their genes, lifestyle, and environment. This large research data and sample repository provides access to high-quality, consented blood samples to help foster research, advance our understanding of the causes of common diseases, and advance the practice of medicine. For the Partners research community (Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital), the Biobank provides: - Banked samples (plasma, serum, and DNA) collected from consented patients - Blood samples that were discarded after clinical testing in the Crimson Cores maintained in the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital Pathology Departments - Sample handling and preparation services - Link to the biobank data to the Partners Research Patient Data Registry (RPDR) a research instance of our electronic clinical chart - Data access through our research portal. To date, over 60,000 Partners patients have given their consent to enroll, give a blood sample, receive research results and agreed to be re-contacted for additional research studies. The Biobank has enabled Partners investigators to compete for nationally recognized grants in personalized medicine such as a clinical electronic Medical Records and Genomics network (eMERGE) site and the national All of US program. The Biobank currently supports over 120 Partners investigators and over 100 million dollars in NIH research.
Kaiser Permanente Washington with the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center: KPWA participants were enrolled in the eMERGE Network through the Northwest Institute of Genetic Medicine (NWIGM) biorepository, and provided the appropriate consent to receive clinically relevant genetic results (N~8,073.) NWIGM is based at the University of Washington and co-managed by the University of Washington and KPWA. The purpose of the NWIGM biorepository is to build infrastructure and resources to carry out a broad range of future genetic research. KPWA members enrolled in the biorepository are asked to provide informed consent to providing a DNA sample for storage in the NWIGM biorepository. The consent is purposefully broad to serve the dual purpose of reducing the burden on researchers who wish to use this biorepository and the IRB committees who will be responsible for reviewing these requests in the future. Participants were eligible if aged 50 - 65 years old at the time of their enrollment into the NWIGM repository, living, enrolled in KPWA's integrated group practice, and had completed an online Health Risk Appraisal. The selection algorithm was based on several data sources from the EHR at KPWA. 1) Demographics - participants with self-reported race as Asian ancestry were prioritized and selected to enrich for non-European ancestry. The KPWA eMERGE cohort includes n=1,245 members of Asian ancestry. 2) Participants were also selected for a history of colorectal cancer (n=1,002), in order to allow us to enrich germline pathogenic variants.
Essentia Institute of Rural Health, Marshfield Clinic, Pennsylvania State University (Marshfield): The Marshfield Clinic Personalized Medicine Research Project is a population-based biobank in central Wisconsin with more than 20,000 adult subjects who provided written, informed consent to access their medical records and provided a blood sample from which DNA was extracted and plasma and serum stored. In addition to an average of 30 years of medical history data, a questionnaire about environmental exposures, including a detailed food frequency questionnaire, is available to facilitate gene/environment studies.
Mayo Clinic: The Mayo Vascular Disease Biorepository is a disease-specific biobank for vascular diseases including peripheral arterial disease (PAD). PAD patients were identified from individuals referred to the non-invasive vascular laboratory for lower extremity arterial evaluation. Since 1997, laboratory findings have been recorded into an electronic database employing an in-house software package for data archiving and retrieval;this data becomes part of the Mayo EMR. Patients referred to the center with suspected PAD undergo a comprehensive non-invasive evaluation including the ankle-brachial index (ABI) - the ratio of blood pressure measured in the upper arms divided by blood pressure measured at the ankles. Controls subjects are identified from patients referred to the Cardiovascular Health Clinic for stress ECG. The prevalence of PAD in patients with normal exercise capacity who do not have inducible ischemia on the stress ECG , was &#x3C;1%. Data regarding risk factors for atherosclerosis such as diabetes, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and smoking are ascertained from the EMR. Case control study of venous thromboembolism (PI John Heit) Controls from a case control study of pancreatic cancer (PI Gloria Petersen) Mayo Clinic Biobank.
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai School (Mt. Sinai): The Institute for Personalized Medicine (IPM) Biobank Project is a consented, EMR-linked medical care setting biorepository of the Mount Sinai Medical Center (MSMC) drawing from a population of over 70,000 inpatients and 800,000 outpatient visits annually. MSMC serves diverse local communities of upper Manhattan, including Central Harlem (86% African American), East Harlem (88% Hispanic Latino), and Upper East Side (88% Caucasian/white) with broad health disparities. IPM Biobank populations include 28% African American (AA), 38% Hispanic Latino (HL) predominantly of Caribbean origin, 23% Caucasian/White (CW). IPM Biobank disease burden is reflective of health disparities with broad public health impact: average body mass index of 28.9 and frequencies of hypertension (55%), hypercholesterolemia (32%), diabetes (30%), coronary artery disease (25%), chronic kidney disease (23%), among others. Biobank operations are fully integrated in clinical care processes, including direct recruitment from clinical sites, waiting areas and phlebotomy stations by dedicated Biobank recruiters independent of clinical care providers, prior to or following a clinician standard of care visit. Recruitment currently occurs at a broad spectrum of over 30 clinical care sites.
Northwestern University: The NUgene Project is a repository with longitudinal medical information from participating patients at affiliated hospitals and outpatient clinics from the Northwestern University Medical Center. Participants'DNA samples are coupled with data from a self-reported questionnaire and continuously updated data from our Electronic Medical Record (EMR) representing actual clinical care events. Northwestern has a state-of-the art, comprehensive inpatient and outpatient EMR system of over 2 million patients. NUgene has broad access to participant data for all outpatient visits as well as inpatient data via a consolidated data warehouse. NUgene participants consent to distribution and use of their coded DNA samples and data for a broad range of genetic research by third-party investigators.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center: BioVU, Vanderbilt's DNA databank, was designed as an enabling resource for exploration of the relationships among genetic variation, disease susceptibility, and variable drug responses. BioVU acquires DNA from discarded blood samples collected from routine patient care. The biobank is linked to de-identified clinical data extracted from Vanderbilt's EMR, which forms the basis for phenotype definitions used in genotype-phenotype correlations. BioVU is currently the largest single site DNA collection world-wide, at >235,000 samples as of spring 2017.

The NUgene Project is a biorepository with longitudinal medical information from participating patients at Northwestern Medicine affiliated hospitals and outpatient clinics. Participants' DNA samples are coupled with data from a self-reported questionnaire (2 versions were used, 1 before and 1 after February 2006, both are included) and continuously updated data from our Electronic Medical Record (EMR) representing actual clinical care events. Northwestern has a state-of-the art, comprehensive inpatient and outpatient EMR system of over 3 million patients. NUgene has broad access to participant data for all outpatient visits as well as inpatient data via a consolidated enterprise data warehouse. NUgene participants consent to distribution and use of their coded DNA samples and data for a broad range of genetic research by third-party investigators.
The **e**lectronic **MedicalR**ecords and **Ge**nomics (eMERGE) Network is a consortium of 9 clinical sites with EMR linked DNA biobanks, including Northwestern University and its NUgene biobank, funded by the NHGRI (National Human Genome Research Institute) to investigate the use of electronic medical record systems for genomic research. The goal of eMERGE is to conduct genome-wide association studies in approximately 100,000 individuals using EMR-derived phenotypes and DNA from linked biorepositories.
Using electronic phenotyping methods, the consortium has been and is using DNA samples from all participating sites to explore the genetic determinants of approximately 80 phenotypes, including both diseases and traits, for which the electronic phenotyping algorithms have or are being published on <a href="https://phekb.org/">PheKB.org</a>.
Thus, for the eMERGE network, ~900 NUgene subjects were selected, as described in the study inclusion/exclusion criteria section below, to be genotyped using whole genome sequencing (WGS), for use in the eMERGE network as eMERGE subjects. The criteria used below were selected so that these subjects will likely meet the criteria to be cases and/or controls, of diverse races and/or ethnicities, for at least 1 of the ~80 phenotypes being studied within eMERGE, and could be recontacted for future research if needed.

The Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network is a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-organized and funded consortium of U.S. medical research institutions. The primary goal of the eMERGE Network is to develop, disseminate, and apply approaches to research that combine biorepositories with electronic medical record (EMR) systems for genomic discovery and genomic medicine implementation research. eMERGE was announced in September 2007 and began its third phase in September 2015. eMERGE III consists of nine study sites, two central sequencing and genotyping facilities, and a coordinating center. eMERGE Phase III aims to: 1) sequence and assess the phenotypic implication of rare variants in a custom designed eMERGEseq panel consisting of 109 genes (including 56 ACMG actionable finding list genes and the top 6 genes from each site relevant to their specific aims), as well as approximately 1400 SNPs; 2) assess the phenotypic implications of these variants by developing, validating and implementing new phenotype algorithms, 3) integrate genetic variants into EMRs to inform clinical care; and 4) create community resources. Included in this study are: - ~24,000 eMERGE participants from 10 eMERGE III study sites. - Corresponding demographics, body mass index measurements. - Top PheWAS codes generated from a collated list of ICD codes from all study sites.
Study sites and participants include:
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC): Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) is a not-for-profit hospital and research center pioneering breakthrough treatments, providing outstanding family-centered patient care and training healthcare professionals for the future, and dedicated to improving health and welfare of children and to the shared purpose of discovery and practical application of new genomic information to the ordinary care of children. We bring a comprehensive electronic health record (EPIC), a deidentified i2b2 data warehouse of 680K patient records, a biobank with >261,000 consents that allow return of results to >84,000 patients and guardians who have provided DNA samples, and hundreds of faculty and senior staff who make genomics or informatics an active focus of their research. CCHMC will help the eMERGE III Steering Committee identify genes for the eMERGE III targeted sequencing panel, provide 3,000 DNA samples from CCHMC patients to be sequenced, review targeted gene panels from clinical care at CCHMC for somatic mosaicism and reinterpretation, and further develop and disseminate a software workflow suite for sequence analysis. We will also extend our work generating phenotype algorithms using heuristic and machine learning methods to many new childhood diseases. We will develop tools to evaluate adolescent return of results preferences, examine the ethical and legal obligations and potential to reanalyze results, and develop clinical decision support for phenotyping, test ordering, and returning sequencing results.
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP): The Center for Applied Genomics (CAG) is a specialized Center of Emphasis at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and one of the world's largest genetics research programs, with to state-of-the-art high-throughput sequencing and genotyping technology. Our primary goal is to translate basic research findings to medical innovations. We aim to develop new and better ways to diagnose and treat children affected by rare and complex medical disorders, including asthma, autism, epilepsy, pediatric cancer, learning disabilities, and a range of rare diseases. Ultimately, our objective is to generate new diagnostic tests and to guide physicians to the most appropriate therapies. Participants were recruited from the CAG biorepository (n>450,000), specifically from >100,000 CHOP pediatric patients and family members, which is enriched for rare-diseases (n>12,000). Center for Applied Genomics, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia We gratefully thank all the children and their families who enrolled in this study, and all individuals who donated blood samples for research purposes. Genotyping for this project was performed at the Center for Applied Genomics and supported by an Institutional Development Award from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Sequencing was supported by the National Institutes of Health through an award from the National Human Genome Research Institute's Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) program (U01HG008684).
Columbia University: The goal of the Columbia eMERGE III project is to develop methods for integrating genomic data in EHRs and to study the impact of such genomic informatics interventions on the health of a diverse, underserved urban adult English- and Spanish-speaking patient population in Northern Manhattan served by Columbia University Medical Center/New York-Presbyterian Hospital system. The study group is 2500 patients recruited from diverse clinics and community outreach centers of self-reported White (~61%), Asian (~11%), African-American (~11%), American Indian/Alaska Native (&#x3C;1%) racial and Hispanic (~33%) ethnic backgrounds. There are two subgroups in the study cohort - a retrospective group (N=1052) that includes patients from oncology and nephrology clinics, and a prospective one (N=1448) that includes healthy individuals as well as participants with diverse medical conditions. Confirmed pathogenic variants in 70 selected genes will be returned to participants and their healthcare providers through the EHR integration. Participants are able to choose the results they receive and will have the freedom to meet with a genetic counselor and a geneticist to review results. The impact of genetic testing on clinical care is determined by periodic monitoring of EHRs.
Geisinger: Samples and phenotype data in this study were provided by the Geisinger MyCode® Community Health Initiative. Participants are recruited across the Geisinger System via online consents or in-person consents at a hospital or clinic visit. Enrollment is ongoing with over 100,000 individuals currently consented.
Partners Healthcare (Harvard University): The Partners HealthCare Biobank is a large research program designed to help researchers understand how people's health is affected by their genes, lifestyle, and environment. This large research data and sample repository provides access to high-quality, consented blood samples to help foster research, advance our understanding of the causes of common diseases, and advance the practice of medicine. For the Partners research community (Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital), the Biobank provides: - Banked samples (plasma, serum, and DNA) collected from consented patients - Blood samples that were discarded after clinical testing in the Crimson Cores maintained in the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital Pathology Departments - Sample handling and preparation services - Link to the biobank data to the Partners Research Patient Data Registry (RPDR) a research instance of our electronic clinical chart - Data access through our research portal.
To date, over 70,000 Partners patients have given their consent to enroll, give a blood sample, receive research results and agreed to be re-contacted for additional research studies. The Biobank has enabled Partners investigators to compete for nationally recognized grants in personalized medicine such as a clinical electronic Medical Records and Genomics network (eMERGE) site and the national All of US program. The Biobank currently supports over 120 Partners investigators and over 130 million dollars in NIH research.
Kaiser Permanente Washington/ (KPWA) / University of Washington (UW): KPWA participants were enrolled in the eMERGE Network through the Northwest Institute of Genetic Medicine (NWIGM) biorepository, and provided the appropriate consent to receive clinically relevant genetic results (N=2,500.) NWIGM is based at the University of Washington and co-managed by the University of Washington and KPWA. The purpose of the NWIGM biorepository is to build infrastructure and resources to carry out a broad range of future genetic research. KPWA members enrolled in the biorepository are asked to provide informed consent to providing a DNA sample for storage in the NWIGM biorepository. The consent is purposefully broad to serve the dual purpose of reducing the burden on researchers who wish to use this biorepository and the IRB committees who will be responsible for reviewing these requests in the future. Participants were eligible if aged 50 - 65 years old at the time of their enrollment into the NWIGM repository, living, enrolled in KPWA's integrated group practice, and had completed an online Health Risk Appraisal. The selection algorithm was based on several data sources from the EHR at KPWA. 1) Demographics - participants with self-reported race as Asian ancestry were prioritized and selected to enrich for non-European ancestry. The KPWA eMERGE cohort includes N=1,245 members of Asian ancestry. 2) Participants were also selected for a history of colorectal cancer (N=1,255), in order to allow us to enrich germline pathogenic variants.
Mayo Clinic: The Return of Actionable Variants Empirical (RAVE) Study was approved by the Mayo Clinic IRB. We recruited 2537 participants from Mayo Clinic biobanks in Rochester, MN, who had hypercholesterolemia or colon polyps, thereby enriching for Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) and monogenic causes of colorectal cancer (CRC). Additional eligibility criteria were: 1) residents of Southeast MN who were alive and aged 18-70 years; 2) LDL-C level >155 or >120 mg/dl while on lipid-lowering therapy; 3) no known cause of secondary hyperlipidemia; and 4) no cognitive impairment or dementia that would compromise their ability to give written informed consent. Based on these criteria, we identified 5270 eligible patients and obtained informed consent from 3030 participants. Recruitment was conducted in waves and utilized mailed recruitment packets consisting of a study brochure, a written informed consent form, a baseline psychosocial questionnaire, and a return postage-paid envelope. DNA of 2537 participants was sent for CLIA-certified targeted sequencing of 109 genes including genes associated with FH and CRC. Targeted sequencing and genotyping was performed in a Central Laboratory Improvement Amendment (CLIA)-certified laboratory.
Northwestern University: Samples and data used in this study were obtained from patients from Northwestern Medicine, an integrated healthcare system, formed through a partnership of Northwestern Memorial HealthCare and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Participants include a retrospective cohort from the Northwestern Pharmacogenomics Study, funded through the eMERGE II project, NHGRI (3U01HG006388-02S1) and a prospective cohort from the Genetic Testing and Your Health Study, funded through the eMERGE III project, NHGRI (U01HG008673). Patients were eligible to participate if they were18 years or older and see a physician at Northwestern Medicine. Patients consented to genetic testing and to allow their results to be placed in their electronic medical record.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center: Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) participants were enrolled in the eMERGE Network through the Vanderbilt Genome-Electronic Records (VGER) project. Patients were provided the appropriate consent to receive clinically relevant genetic results (N=2,700). Participants were eligible if aged 21 or over, had a healthcare provider at VUMC, and visited the provider at least 3 times in the past 3 years.
Meharry Medical College: Inclusion of ethnic groups in genomic research is critical to identify possible reasons for health disparities. African-Americans are being enrolled in various outpatient clinics of Nashville General Hospital at Meharry, an inner city hospital primary serving a poorer patient group. A total of 500 African Americans with four cancer types demonstrating health disparities in this population - prostate, colon, breast, lung are identified and approached by clinical research coordinators. The purpose of the study is to determine if any genetic information can be identified from these patients who have or are at high risk of one of these disparate cancers. All participants provide written informed consent and HIPAA authorization to provide blood samples for broad research use and permission to access data in their hospital electronic medical record for research now and in the future. An extensive demographic profile is obtained and entered into a REDCap database. Blood samples are obtained for a panel of alleles from extracted DNA at Baylor. In addition, de-identified coded samples are processed and stored in a central biorepository for further DNA, RNA and proteomic analyses. The survey and phlebotomy are performed at the time of the initial contact and agreement to participate. Nearly all patients approached willingly agree to participate for potential benefit to themselves, family members, or humankind. Little concern is voiced of providing samples for genetic analysis. Study investigators will share results with the participants and providers if testing does not indicate high risk. Results indicating increased risk or actionable alleles for the patient and/or family will be returned by a genetic counselor. Monitoring of the patients' health in this cohort will continue to be followed in the EMR to identify any future associations that might explain health disparities in African Americans. Proposals will be reviewed from investigators to study the genetic or proteomic samples as well as the clinical and demographic information in the repository.
Please note that this version of the dataset has a handful of mismatches between genotyped and provided sex. Data with the following IDs should be removed prior to analysis: |42025287|42137441|42412243|42456938|42456946|42672223
 <table></table>

This submission includes genotyping or sequencing data from separate cohorts, each is described in separate paragraphs below.
Extreme early onset obesity
Obesity is a serious epidemic condition and on the rise in the United States. Today, nearly one out of three children is overweight or obese in this country. According to the Center for Disease Control, 35.7% of American adults and 17% of American children are obese. The medical costs associated with obesity are estimated to be in the billions. Without a doubt, interplay of additive genetic effects and common environmental effects influence this complex disease. However, despite being exposed to so-called "obesogenic environment", a large proportion of the population remains of normal weight. These observations suggest that innate, non-environmental, factors make some individuals more susceptible to obesity providing support for biological mechanisms, and thus genetic factors, to underlie the individual's response to the obesogenic environment. In young children with severe obesity the relative role of genetics and in utero programming are likely to outweigh the short duration of environmental and lifestyle exposures. This group is therefore an ideal one to study as they are likely enriched for variants that influence the risk of developing obesity. The purpose of this project is to further study and understand obesity in childhood and to develop a repository of samples for future studies into obesity.
Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE)
Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) is one of the manifestations of eosinophilic gastrointestinal inflammation which have profound effects on a patient's health and development. Results of epidemiologic studies performed through our center demonstrate that eosinophil-associated gastrointestinal disease is not an uncommon entity. While the epidemiology of eosinophilic esophagitis has not been thoroughly studied until recently, there appears to be a significant increase in the diagnosis of EoE in the last decade. Based on our research, this mainly reflects increased disease recognition, but there is also a bona-fide increase in disease incidence which coincides with the increasing incidence of asthma and allergic diseases in the industrialized world. In addition, many patients with intractable symptoms thought in the past to represent atypical GERD or other disorders are now being recognized as having EoE. Diagnosis of EoE requires endoscopy and biopsies to document the characteristic histologic findings of esophageal eosinophilia. In general, this study proposed to elucidate the mechanisms underlying eosinophil growth, survival, migration, and function, and to investigate and further characterize the pathophysiology of, clinical manifestations of, and spectrum of disease severity of eosinophilic esophagitis in humans. The de-identified genotyping and genome wide association data generated as part of this research will be used for further genome research.
Familial Sample Repository (FSR) and Directed Sample Repository (DSR)
De novo mutations could cause many diseases, which has been demonstrated in mental retardation, autism and many rare genetic disorders. Family-based studies have a variety of advantages over case/control studies, including the elimination of analysis artifacts related to population stratification, the detection of genes that act through a recessive mechanism of inheritance and validation that the trait is not transmitted from a parent, something not possible using a case/control design. Additionally, DNA from families can be used to identify de novo mutations suggesting strong candidate causal polymorphisms. For this project, samples will be collected from families on an on-going basis. Families may be recruited because the patient either has a disease which is thought to be of genetic origin or from the general patient population to serve as controls or future identified diseases. Some phenotypes under study include fibroblastic rheumatism, diaphragmatic hernia, polymicrogyria, severe congenital neutropenia, primary sclerosing cholangitis and staph infection.
CLRR-Cincinnati Lupus Registry and Repository
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a complex, partially understood autoimmune disorder. Genetic origins for SLE are supported by high heritability (> 66%), familial aggregation, increased monozygotic twin concordance, genetic linkages, and candidate gene genetic association, including HLA genes, Fc receptors, and complement components. Relevant environmental factors likely include infections (Epstein-Barr virus), therapeutics, personal habits (smoking), and diet. To continue a research resource facility for collection of well-characterized pedigrees containing a proband with systemic lupus erythematosus we develop this repository.
Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA)
Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) is a debilitating complex genetic disorder characterized by inflammation of the joints and other tissues and shares histopathological features with other autoimmune diseases. It is considered complex genetic traits. There are more than 50,000 children with JIA in the USA, approximately 1 per 1000 births, which is about the same incidence as juvenile diabetes. It is believed that genes in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) play a role in defining genetic risk, and it can be hypothesized that loci in other chromosomal regions are involved in conferring risk in JIA. These candidate chromosomal regions can be identified using genome-wide association analyses. The long-term goal is a comprehensive understanding of the genetic basis of these disabling arthropathies for which the molecular basis is not presently understood. These data will contribute to a national resource for the study of autoimmunity in children.
Better Outcomes for Children-Cytogenetics
Since 2007, more than 4000 samples, enriched with various rare or common genetic diseases as well as specific chromosomal abnormalities such as deletions and duplications have been genotyped for the purpose of subsequent GWAS and Phewas analyses and uncovering main genetic effects.

eMERGE-PGx is a multi-site test of the concept that sequence information can be coupled to electronic medical records (EMRs) for use in healthcare. The promise of personalized medicine - health care guided by each individual's biological characteristics - is being fostered by increasingly powerful and economical methods to acquire clinically relevant biomarkers from large numbers of people. One therapeutic area that seems especially ripe for an early test of the personalized medicine concept is pharmacogenomics (PGx) - the idea that individual variation in drug response includes a genomic component. Drug response variation is an accepted feature of virtually all drug treatments, and contemporary molecular biologic tools continue to identify key genes mediating drug metabolism, transport, and targets. Importantly, common variation in these genes is an increasingly well-recognized contributor, sometimes with large effects, to variation in drug responses. As a result, recommendations for genotype-guided therapy are increasing. These evidence-based recommendations, if implemented in health care practice, could reduce adverse drug events and improve time to therapeutic response. Through eMERGE-PGx, we are developing strategies for the optimal implementation of genetic sequence data into the clinical environment with the ultimate goal of improving patient care.
Site and participants include:
Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania (CHOP): The Center for Applied Genomics (CAG) at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is a high-throughput, highly automated genotyping and sequencing facility equipped with state-of-the-art genotyping and sequencing platforms. Children who are treated at the Children's Hospital Healthcare Network and their parents may be eligible to take part in a major initiative to collect more than 100,000 blood samples, covering a wide range of pediatric diseases. The PGx population selected for sequencing with the PGRNseq panel at CHOP is 1,650 children from CAG's biorepository with well-documented drug-related severe adverse events (SAEs) or EHR-based drug response profiles. SAEs were extracted from EPIC records and from CHOP's Adverse Event (AE) database, which documents every AE at CHOP. These AEs are classified by a medical review panel according to the causal relationship with the suspected drug into 'doubtful', 'possible', and 'probable'. Individuals with events classified as probable, severe and objective, were selected for sequencing. The drugs more frequently associated with adverse events are antibiotics, antineoplastics, immunosuppressants and psychotropic drugs. This cohort constitutes 50% of the target population. The remaining subjects were selected using EHR-based algorithms that we have developed and validated at CAG for identifying patients not responding to ADHD medication (primarily atomoxetine) and patients refractory to antiepileptic treatment from responders.
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center/Boston's Children's Hospital (CCHMC/BCH): 811 CCHMC samples were obtained from children, adolescents or young adults exposed to medication or at risk for needing medication of study interest. 55% of participants were exposed to one or more opioids and their DNA source was a CCHMC study-specific biobank; while 27% of participants were at risk for needing an opioid for surgical pain management and were newly recruited. The remainder of the cohort was exposed to methylphenidate and their DNA samples were obtained from a CCHMC study-specific biobank.
The focus of Boston Children's Hospital eMERGE PGx project is on individuals with epilepsy. Samples were taken from a current pharmacogenomics study already in place through which DMET analysis was run and used as confirmation for PGRN-Seq results. A total of 109 samples were sent for PGRN-Seq analysis at University of Washington. The remaining 141 epilepsy samples were from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and underwent testing with PGRN-Seq at CHOP.
Geisinger Health System: A research cohort of adult Geisinger Clinic patients was enrolled from community-based primary care clinics of the Geisinger Health System. Patients were eligible for enrollment if they were a primary care patient of a Geisinger Clinic physician and were scheduled for a non-emergent clinic visit. All data are from Geisinger patients who consent to participate in the MyCode project. MyCode participants agree to provide biological samples for broad research use, including genomic analysis, and for linking of sample data to information in the participant's Geisinger health record. The consent also permits sharing of de-identified data for research purposes.
Group Health(GH)/University of Washington (UW): Potential GH participants for the PGx project were enrolled in the eMERGE Network through the Northwest Institute of Genetic Medicine (NWIGM) biorepository, and provided the appropriate consent to receive clinically relevant genetic results (N~6300). Participants were eligible if aged 50 - 65 years old at the time of their enrollment into the NWIGM repository, living, enrolled in GH's integrated group practice, and had completed an online Health Risk Appraisal. The selection algorithm was based on several data sources from the EHR at Group Health: 1. Demographics - participants with self-reported race as Asian or African ancestry were prioritized and selected to enrich for non-European ancestry; 2. Diagnosis and procedure codes - participants were selected if found to have a history of hypertension, atrial fibrillation (AF,) or congestive heart failure (CHF). Participants with a history of arrhythmia were added if the entire selection algorithm did not generate 900 individuals. We also enriched for participants with EHR evidence of actionable indications related to PGRNSeq genes. Participants were selected if found to have an ICD9 code for malignant hyperthermia, hypertension, atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure or long QT syndrome (LQTS); 3. Laboratory values - if a participant had any laboratory event of creatine kinase (CK) > 1000, and were dispensed statins within 6 months of the event, then they were selected; and 4. Medications - participants were excluded if ever on carbamazepine or had a current regimen of warfarin.
Essentia Institute of Rural Health, Marshfield Clinic, Pennsylvania State University (Marshfield): For this study, 750 subjects were selected and enrolled into PGx based on Vanderbilt's algorithm designed to enrich for patients who are most likely to receive one of three common drugs (Clopidogrel, Warfarin or Simvastatin) in the next 2-3 years. These patients were sent a letter of invitation and description of the PGx project. Follow-up phone calls were made, and interested subjects came in for a one time meeting to discuss the project and go through the informed consent with the research coordinator. If they were interested they signed the consent and HIPAA forms and gave blood. Subjects were chosen and enrolled into PGx independently of previous biobank participation.
Mayo Clinic: The Right Drug, Right Dose, Right Time - Using Genomic Data to Individualize Treatment (The RIGHT Protocol) enrolled 1013 patients to test the hypothesis that prescribers could deliver genome-guided drug therapy at the point-of-care by using pharmacogenomic data preemptively integrated in the electronic medical record. Complete details regarding the study population have been previously described (<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3932754/">Bielinski et al.</a>, 2014).
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai School (Mt Sinai): Our study site is the Primary Care Associates (PCA) practice group of the Mount Sinai Faculty Practice Associates (FPA) of the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. This practice has 12 physician providers. All patient encounters are documented and managed with EpicCare ambulatory electronic medical record. Active PCA Patients eligible for enrollment fulfilled the following criteria: a) age 50 or older receiving clinical care at Mount Sinai FPA PCA practice with at least one practice encounter within 18 months prior to commencement of enrollment; b) no history or current use of clopidogrel, warfarin, or simvastatin. Eligible patients were invited to participate through de novo recruitment by letter sent by their provider. Interested patients were screened for eligibility and enrolled to participate in the eMERGE PGX study on site by a dedicated research coordinator.
In addition to de novo enrollment from clinical practice, patients of FPA PCA who had previously enrolled in Mount Sinai's BioMe Biobank program AND fulfilled eligibility criteria as stated under a) and b) were identified by chart review and samples sequenced at CIDR using PGRNseq platform (N=300). PGRNseq data from 291 samples passed stringent quality control and are included in the current data set. Furthermore, 56 of these patients carrying known and validated 'actionable' variants affecting prescribing of clopidogrel, warfarin, and/or simvastatin were enrolled in the eMERGE PGX study following invitation through recontacting by the Principal Investigator of the BioMe Program.
Northwestern University: Participants for this study were recruited from the General Internal Medicine (GIM) clinic at Northwestern Medical Group (NMG). Patients were selected for invitation to participate if they had been seen a minimum of two times over the last four years, having a high likelihood to receive a prescription for warfarin, Plavix, or a statin, and are seeing a physician who has agreed to allow their patients to be contacted for the study. We utilized an algorithm developed at Vanderbilt and tailored to our population which uses our EHR to estimate the probability that individuals will receive a prescription for warfarin, Plavix, or a statin in the next three years. Participants were sent a letter explaining the study prior to their GIM appointment and offered participation at the time of their visit. Participants were consented on-site and blood drawn after consent was obtained.
The GIM clinic consists of 39 primary care physicians who provide approximately 80,000 patient encounters per year. As with any large primary care clinic, a significant proportion of patients in GIM clinic suffer from a variety of chronic health conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension, and coronary artery disease. Over 50,000 individuals have been seen by GIM doctors in the past 5 years; 11,562 of these patients have evidence of a statin prescription in the EHR, 3,436 have evidence of a warfarin prescription, and 1,872 have evidence of a Plavix prescription.
Vanderbilt University: The more than 1000 participants enrolled into Vanderbilt's eMERGE PGx study were newly recruited from the Cardiology and Internal Medicine Clinics and the Hillsboro Medical Group within Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). Patients were selected based on a predictive algorithm estimating the patient's likelihood of receiving Clopidogrel, Warfarin, and/or Simvastatin. The algorithm identifies primarily older middle-aged patients, and the mean age of the study group is 74. The cohort is approximately 45% female with 75% of subjects self-identified as EA and 24% as AA. Subjects were consented in person by study personnel following a routine clinic visit and an introduction to the study staff by their doctor.
VUMC is a comprehensive health care facility dedicated to patient care, research, and the education of health care professionals. Translational research into the causes and treatment of disease as well as studying fundamental biological properties is the primary focus of discovery at Vanderbilt. Clinical research is conducted in Vanderbilt University Hospital, the Nashville Veterans Administration Hospital, Meharry General Hospital and in their associated outpatient clinics. These hospitals and clinics, all associated with the Vanderbilt system, each have full time Vanderbilt faculty and medical housestaff and provide clinical care and participate in research programs. The Vanderbilt Clinic is comprised of more than 95 adult outpatient specialty practices and received over 1.5 million ambulatory visits in 2012-13. The Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute offers a comprehensive heart program offering diagnosis, medical treatment, minimally invasive therapies, surgical intervention and disease management, tailored to each individual's unique needs. All programs within the Vanderbilt Clinic have survival figures that surpass the national average.

DNA samples were obtained from participants of the Geisinger MyCode biobank. Phenotype data to determine case or control status for abdominal aortic aneurysm or extreme obesity were derived from Geisinger electronic medical record data through an enterprise data warehouse. Samples were genotyped using the Illumina Human CoreExome-12 v1.0 Array. Genotype data were filtered using standard quality control measures.

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is an important public health problem in developed countries. Statins are effective in the prevention and treatment of CHD; nevertheless, many patients receiving statins still suffer cardiovascular events (CV) such as heart attack. Identifying genetic variants responsible for differential clinical responses to statins will not only allow individual patients at high residual risk to be targeted for additional therapies, but also will define new biologic pathways contributing to statin response, and thus new targets for future therapies. Accordingly, the goal of this study is to identify genetic variants associated with clinical CV in patients receiving statins.
Subjects identified for study are of European descent and include 1718 subjects with CV while on statins (cases) and 4172 subjects without CV while on statins (controls). Key research resources utilized in this effort include VanderbiltD's BioVU DNA databank and associated Synthetic Derivative database of clinical information, and software tools developed to identify drugs and clinical events using Electronic Health Record-derived structured and unstructured ("free text") data. Most cases and controls identified include three data types: ICD-9 codes, medication regimens, and medical test results. Genotyping, using IlluminaD's Infinium HumanOmniExpressExome BeadChip (OmniExpressExome), was performed by the RIKEN Integrative Medical Sciences Center (IMS) and supported by the Pharmacogenomics Research Network (PGRN)-RIKEN IMS Global Alliance.

The electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network is a consortium of ten participating sites funded by the NHGRI to investigate the use of electronic medical record systems for genomic research. The goal of eMERGE is to conduct genome-wide association studies in approximately 19,000 individuals using EMR-derived phenotypes and DNA from linked Biorepositories. The eMERGE Network brings together researchers with a wide range of expertise in genomics, statistics, ethics, informatics, and clinical medicine from leading medical research institutions across the country. Each center participating in the consortium is uniquely situated to provide critical resources to this highly collaborative and productive network. Each site combines a biobank or study cohort with extensive genomic data and access to clinical data derived from electronic medical records. Sites are geographically dispersed and have diverse patient populations, including two sites focusing specifically on pediatrics.
The eMERGE Network is comprised of 9 sites and one coordinating center. Each site maintains its own biorepository where DNA specimens are linked to phenotypic data contained within EMRs.
 <ul> **Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania**, PI: Hakon Hakonarson, MD, PhD 
 **Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania**, PI: Hakon Hakonarson, MD, PhD **Cincinnati Children's Medical Center with Boston Children's Hospital**, PI: John Harley, MD, PhD - CCHMC and Ingrid Holm, MD, MPH - BCH **Geisinger Health System**, PI: David Carey, PhD and Marc Williams, MD **Group Health Cooperative with University of Washington**, PI: Eric Larson, MD, MPH - GHC and Gail Jarvik, MD, PhD - UW **Marshfield Clinic with Essentia Institute of Rural Health**, PI: Catherine McCarty, PhD, MPH - Essentia and Murray Brilliant, PhD - Marshfield **Mayo Clinic**, PI: Christopher Chute, MD, DrPH and Iftikhar Kullo, MD **Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai**, PI: Erwin Bottinger, MD **Northwestern University**, PI: Rex Chisholm, PhD and Maureen Smith, MS **Vanderbilt University**, PI: Dan Roden, MD **eMERGE Coordinating Center** - Vanderbilt University, PI: Paul Harris, PhD 
Using electronic phenotyping methods, the consortium used DNA samples from all participating sites to explore the genetic determinants of red cell indices, white blood count (WBC) differential, diabetic retinopathy, height, serum lipid levels, specifically total cholesterol, HDL (high density lipoprotein), LDL (low density lipoprotein), and triglycerides, and autoimmune hypothyroidism as well as using the phenome-wide association study (PheWAS) paradigm to replicate and discover relationships between targeted genotypes with multiple phenotypes.</ul>

The Center for Applied Genomics (CAG) is a specialized Center of Emphasis at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) with the primary goal of translating basic research findings to medical innovations. The mission of CAG is to develop new and better ways to diagnose and treat children affected by rare and complex medical disorders.
We aim to discover genetic causes for the most prevalent diseases of childhood including asthma, autism, diabetes, epilepsy, obesity, schizophrenia, pediatric cancer, and a range of rare diseases. Ultimately, our objective is to generate new diagnostic tests and to guide physicians to the most appropriate therapies.
The CAG is one of the world's largest genetics research programs in pediatrics, and the only center at a pediatric hospital to have established a large-scale biobank of genotyped samples.
The electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network is a consortium of 9 clinical sites with EMR linked DNA biobanks, including Northwestern University and its NUgene biobank, funded by the NHGRI (National Human Genome Research Institute) to investigate the use of electronic medical record systems for genomic research. The goal of eMERGE is to conduct genome-wide association studies in approximately 100,000 individuals using EMR-derived phenotypes and DNA from linked biorepositories.
Using electronic phenotyping methods, the consortium has been and is using DNA samples from all participating sites to explore the genetic determinants of approximately 80 phenotypes, including both diseases and traits, for which the electronic phenotyping algorithms have or are being published on <a href="https://phekb.org/">PheKB.org</a>.

eMERGE

Description

Summary