Geisinger’s MyCode Community Health Initiative enrolls 350,000 participants

DANVILLE, Pa. - Geisinger's MyCode Community Health Initiative has enrolled 350,000 participants, reaching a major milestone for the program. With paired DNA sequence and health data currently available for nearly 230,000 of these participants, MyCode is the largest healthcare system-based study of its kind in the United States.

MyCode was one of the first programs to return clinically actionable genetic results to patient-participants through its Genomic Screening and Counseling (GSC) program. To date, more than 5,000 participants at increased risk for potentially life-threatening conditions, like hereditary breast and colon cancers, familial hypercholesterolemia and heart disease, have received genomic risk results. These results allow patients to work with their care providers to prevent disease, detect it earlier or treat it better, potentially leading to better health outcomes.

"Providing these clinically actionable results to our patients empowers them to take action that may lead to better health outcomes for themselves and their families," said Christa Lese Martin, Ph.D., Geisinger's chief scientific officer. "The continued growth of the MyCode program not only benefits patients, it provides crucial information to discover new genetic links to disease."

As part of the MyCode GSC program, DNA samples are analyzed to look for changes in 81 genes known to increase the risk of developing more than 35 health conditions. Examples of these include the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes known to increase risk for breast and ovarian cancer, and genes for familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), which can cause early heart attacks and strokes. The GSC program also returns genomic risk results for Lynch syndrome, which can cause early colon, uterine and other cancers, and several additional heart conditions, including cardiomyopathies and arrythmias.

The project has also explored the return of clinically relevant results for other medical conditions, such as neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. While not always clinically actionable, learning these results can provide valuable medical information to patients about probable genetic causes for conditions like autism, epilepsy, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. A 2022 analysis of MyCode data showed that 1 in 100 people had a gene variant that increases risk for these disorders.

Analysis of MyCode data has contributed to a number of other groundbreaking discoveries over the past several years, including identifying a rare genetic variant that protects against obesity. A 2023 study showed that genomic screening is effective in identifying thyroid cancer. And, Geisinger researchers have received major grant funding to study the impact of genomics on health using MyCode data, including a study of the genetics of cancer and development of a tool to diagnose genetic disorders in real time.

For more information about MyCode, visit geisinger.org/mycode.