The quality and comparability of genomic profiling for precision medicine varies significantly. Therefore, reference measurement systems (RMS) for genomic diagnostics are needed. The development of such systems and reference procedures for measuring genomic biomarkers are major goals of GenomeMET. “New reference materials and measurement methods for quality control of pre-analytical and analytical steps (e.g. yield and uniformity of NGS libraries) will also be established in the course of the project”, informs Cornelia Stumptner principle investigator at Med Uni Graz and BBMRI.at executive manager.

In GenomeMET, Med Uni Graz will be in charge of the following tasks:

• Collection of tissue samples from non-small cell lung cancer patients according to ISO pre-analytical quality standards and subjected to different pre-analytial conditions (e.g. different fixation durations);
• Development of cell-based reference materials considering different pre-analytical conditions that mimic those of tissue in medical diagnostic settings (such as different ischemia or fixation times) to evaluate the suitability of these cultured cells as reference material.

The project kick-off took place in Autumn 2023.