Newborn Genomic Sequencing Pilot Study

Newborn screening (NBS) by testing dried blood spots (DBS) identifies newborns with a few diseases for which effective treatments are available to enable treatment at or before symptom onset. Because NBS improves outcomes in these diseases, it is performed on almost all US babies. The current Federal recommended NBS list is limited to 35 conditions and identifies \~6,600 affected children per year. In genetic diseases not screened by NBS, however, outcomes remain poor because of delays in diagnosis and treatment. The investigators recently developed a system for NBS for 434 severe, childhood genetic diseases for which effective treatments are available using whole genome sequencing (WGS), called BeginNGS. Retrospective studies showed BeginNGS to have a true negative rate (specificity) of 99.7% and true positive rate (sensitivity) of 88.8%. The investigators now propose to undertake a first prospective study in newborns admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego (RCHSD) to compare the sensitivity and specificity of BeginNGS with that of standard, diagnostic rapid whole genome sequencing (DWGS) and whole exome sequencing (WES). This study is in preparation for larger, future clinical trials.