SAN DIEGO — The recent explosion in data generation combined with fast-improving analytic technologies are beginning to revolutionize the field of medicine and health care, bringing closer the era of precision medicine.
Precision medicine, also referred to as personalized or individualized medicine, is “an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment and lifestyle for each person,” according to the US National Institutes of Health.
And it’s one of the hottest buzzwords in the medical biotech industry today, highlighted at the seminars and conferences that took place on the sidelines of the four-day Bio International Convention in San Diego from Monday to Thursday.
This may not come as a surprise, as San Diego is dubbed the “genomics capital” of the world for housing companies and academic institutions with strong capabilities in genomics, a field that involves mapping out the human gene to help understand and treat disease, as well as computing technologies.
The Bio International Convention took place at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California from June 19-22 (BIO)
Craig Venter, the world-famous scientist-turned-entrepreneur who sequenced the first complete individual human genome back in 2001, highlighted how genetic information combined with bioimaging data can help identify diseases even before they show symptoms, enabling early treatment.
“If we can just do early predictions of heart disease and cancer (the two leading cause of death among men and women), we can have a profound effect on changing the longevity curve,” Venter said as he presented the work of one of his companies, Human Longevity, at the conference on Thursday.
The San Diego, California-based company is compiling a large database of DNA and clinical information to find ways to extend the human lifespan by predicting disease.
It runs a $25,000 physical exam, dubbed the “Health Nucleus” which includes whole genome sequencing and whole body MRI imaging. The exam amasses personalized data totaling about one petabyte of medical information, analyzed via machine learning algorithms, to pinpoint signs of deadly diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s.
So far, 103 people have received the exam, through which several have discovered cancer, brain tumors and liver disease that might otherwise have been left unnoticed and untreated, said the founding chairman of Human Longevity.
As the costs of genetic sequencing continue to freefall, personalized diagnostic services are expected to become more mainstream in the health care realm in the coming years.
Earlier this year, Illumina, the world’s biggest maker of DNA sequencing machines, introduced a new machine that is “expected one day” to allow for a genome to be sequenced for under $100. Less than a decade ago, full genome sequencing had cost several millions of dollars.
Academic institutions are engaged in similar efforts to amass a large collection of health data with the hope of developing an improved and more precise reference of human health.
Lloyd Minor, dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine shared how the university has partnered with the Duke University School of Medicine and Verily Life Sciences to initiate the “Project Baseline” study.
The study will enroll 10,000 participants and follow them for four years to collect data recorded via clinicians, self-reports and bio-specimen samples. This “baseline” map of human health will then be used to understand the transition from health to disease, according to Minor.
“What will come out of this study can be used for biomarkers associated with new types of cancer, or a new novel area of the genome. That can then be tested in a larger group of people that are not undergoing a screen everything approach,” he said.
Other panel discussions revolved around topics like the “path from big data to precision medicine” which addressed the challenges of translating the tsunami of genetic and biomedical imaging data into “actionable knowledge for researchers, drug developers and clinicians.”
Other eye-catching sessions revolved around the opportunities and challenges that artificial intelligence — using computers to rapidly and intelligently analyze big data and generate insights — poses on the biopharma value chain.
Organized by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, the annual Bio International Convention is a major biotech and pharmaceutical industry event for networking, business meetings and seminars. This year’s edition took place for four days in San Diego.
By Sohn Ji-young, Korea Herald correspondent (
jys@heraldcorp.com)