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The Bryson Program in Human Genetics supports the genetics teams at UNC in their ongoing mission to advance knowledge related to genetic diseases and see that such knowledge benefits patients. The Bryson program was enabled by a generous gift from Vaughn and Nancy Bryson in 2005 and has been instrumental in accomplishing these dual goals at the University of North Carolina. Among many other accomplishments, the Bryson Program has directly enabled:

  • Establishment of a broad clinical infrastructure that ensures important genetic knowledge is utilized in the care of patients seen in diverse clinical specialties, including oncology, ophthalmology, nephrology, hematology, and cardiology.
  • The creation of the Biospecimen Processing (BSP) Facility, which directly enables research throughout the campus by acting as a core facility to collect, process, and store DNA and other biospecimens for research. The BSP has acted as the central specimen repository for hundreds of thousands of samples and is a key “core facility” at UNC.
  • The creation of an infrastructure for high-throughput sequencing of DNA and subsequent informatic analysis. This now-established infrastructure has been a key component of our ability to attract millions of dollars in funding as we pursue research focused on the application of emerging DNA technology to patient care.
  • The Bryson Program has contributed to national efforts, centered at UNC, to educate high-court judges in matters of genetics in particular and science in general.

Finally, the Bryson Program serves as the intellectual home for medical geneticists, genetic counselors, and staff as they pursue their twin missions of patient care and research.