An estimated 250 million people worldwide suffer from rare diseases. However, because each individual disease affects such a small number of people, little funding is used to study these conditions. Consequently, these patients are left with neither hope of a cure nor understanding of the disease. Each day is a living struggle for them to find a social identity in a world where they feel socially neglected and lost. Because most rare diseases are genetic in nature, it is believed that genome sequencing has the power to help these patients in a way that conventional diagnostics cannot. However, most families affected with rare diseases are under financial strain, making access to such technologies difficult. To address this need, an institute called Rare Genomics Institute has been established.
