ONE of the UK's most advanced genetic medicine centres is to be "cloned" on Teesside, it has been revealed.

The new Teesside Genetics Unit, at James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough, will offer an identical service to specialists based at the highly-rated Centre for Life, in Newcastle.

Integrated computer software and a close working relationship between the Middlesbrough and Newcastle centres should provide equal access to patients in the north and south of the region.

Advances in genetics mean more families could benefit from screening for potentially devastating inherited diseases.

Currently, patients from all over the region who need such tests are usually referred to the Northern Genetics Service, based inside the futuristic Centre for Life complex.

But next month a new Teesside Genetics Unit will open its doors. Staffed by a team of two clinical genetics consultants supported by three specially-trained genetic counsellors, the unit will occupy part of the extended Middlesbrough hospital campus.

Professor John Burn, head of clinical genetics at Newcastle University and clinical director of the Northern Genetics Service, said the opening of the Teesside unit represented a "historic return" of genetic services to the Middlesbrough area.

"More than ten years ago there was a lab on Teesside that did chromosome tests. That was eventually absorbed into the Northern Genetics Service and moved to Newcastle," said Prof Burn.

"With the recent White Paper calling for a major increase in our capacity for genetic testing, our plans to return to Teesside have proved very timely."

Unusually, the new genetics unit at James Cook University Hospital will remain part of the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust.

Prof Burn said this would help to ensure the two-centre service worked as one.

He said: "We will have a system which means that when you log in to laboratory or clinical records at either of the units you would be logging into the same data base. It won't matter if you see someone in Newcastle or Middlesbrough."

People will be referred to the new centre if it is suspected they, or their children, may be affected by inheritable diseases such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Huntington's disease, cystic fibrosis, tuberous sclerosis, hereditary cancer and Down's syndrome.