Yesterday was the first day of Personalized Medicine World Conference, Silicon Valley.
The most surprising part of the line up of 13 speakers is that 9 of them talked about genetics or pharmacogenomics, topics that would have been mentioned briefly, if at all, even 5 years ago. The promise of personalized medicine is that we will be able to determine from someone’s DNA which drugs are appropriate in what dose to be effective.
A good deal of the focus was on how to handle genetic information in a clinical setting, with doctors who may not have the training in genetics.
Another theme for the talks was the decreasing cost of getting genetic information on a patient and how this can drive clinical decisions. The ultimate dream is to be able to test a patient’s genetic data, get an almost instantaneous read out and treat appropriately.
Some highlights:
- Scott Jenkins, Ph.D. from Dell Healthcare & Life Sciences talked about the challenge of storing a terabyte of DNA data per patient and the challenge that presents.
- Russ Altman, Ph.D. showed off his web PharmGKB project curating and cataloging pharmacogenomic data. Vance Vanier, MD of Navigenics talked very frankly about how in order for genetic data to be useful, it must be brought into clinical practice.
- Elizabeth Mansfield, Ph.D. spoke about the changes happening at the FDA surrounding regulations as it pertains to personalized medicine, in her words, “Policies were not written with personalized medicine in mind, we are trying to find the best pathway forward.”
Looking forward to the more consumer/patient talks today.
Posted by Chia Hwu 
