Top 25 Innovators - 2021

Pastinen has helmed the center since 2017 and leads its efforts to better integrate research and clinical care through the use of genomic medicine, precision therapeutics and population health. In 2019, his team launched Genomic Answers for Kids to bring genomics into rare disease research taking place at the hospital. They set a goal of collecting genomic data and health information from 30,000 children and their families over the next seven years. As of mid-2021, the initiative had enrolled more than 2,450 families and over 5,700 individuals, resulting in more than 12,300 new genomic analyses and almost 400 genetic diagnoses. It also contributed to reporting of 10 new disease genes.