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Initiative Pushes CHOP To Forefront In Pediatric Genetic Research

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has received a $25 million grant from the founding family of the Comcast Corporation.

The gift from the Roberts family will be matched by Children's Hospital, and create the Roberts Collaborative for Genetics and Individualized Medicine.

"It's putting together eight existing centers that do genetics, genomics, and all types of things around that at CHOP and pulls them all together so by integrating the efforts that they have so we have a common goal," explains Chief Scientific Officer and Executive VP at CHOP Doctor Bryon Wolf.

Wolf says that goal is identify the genetic basis of complex disease, and then create tools for diagnosis:

"And we can develop new therapies, and the new therapies could be things like gene therapy to cure the disease or finding new drugs that would work to treat disease that have a genetic component."

The new center will be called the "Roberts Center for Pediatric Research."

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