The National Institutes of Health has awarded the first-ever grant dedicated to laying the policy groundwork needed to translate genomic medicine into clinical application. The project – LawSeq – will convene legal, ethics, and scientific experts from across the country to analyze what the state of genomic law is and create much-needed guidance on what it should be.

The principal investigators leading the grant are Susan M. Wolf, J.D., U of M chair of the Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences; Ellen Wright Clayton, M.D., J.D. (Vanderbilt University); and Frances Lawrenz, Ph.D., U of M associate vice president for research and professor of educational psychology. Lawrenz is an expert in qualitative and quantitative research methods who has successfully led multiple National Science Foundation grants and has directed qualitative research on managing incidental findings and return of genomic results.

The leading investigators will be joined by a group of 22 top experts – from academia, industry, and clinical care – who will collaborate over the course of this three-year project to clarify current law, address gaps, and generate the forward-looking recommendations needed to create the legal foundation for successfully translating genomics into clinical care.