The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is here this weekend for its annual meeting, bringing over 8,000 scientists from across the world to Vancouver to discuss the latest discoveries and advances in science across many fields.
One of the big themes in the health-related sessions today has been related to advances in genetic sequencing and its contribution health and medicine. Using The field of personalized medicine has recently become a CIHR funding priority, and in one session this morning, a CIHR director described the personalized medicine initiative they are offering in partnership with Genome Canada.
Currently, many personalized medicine interventions work by stratifying populations into smaller groups than are typically used for treating disease. By identifying these smaller groups of patients for which a certain treatment is known to be highly effective — or highly ineffective — scientists and doctors are able to make better decisions on what medicines to provide, and are more often able to avoid giving unecessary treatments or tests.
One high-profile UBC researcher, Dr. Michael Hayden, is using a field of study called Pharmacogenomic Analysis in order to stratify some cancer populations that may be more sensitive to serious side-effects of certain cancer drugs.
One such drug is called Cisplatin, an anti-tumor drug highly effective for many but can cause deafness in many paediatric patients. By using personalized medicine and genomic research, Dr. Hayden’s group was able to identify the genetic variants associated with patients susceptible to deafness as a side-effect, and are thus able to use genetic testing to avoid providing that medicine to those who may have otherwise been provided the drug.
Another way Dr. Hayden’s group is able to identify the genetic “markers” that make certain people susceptible to certain illnesses or side-effects is by looking at patients who are outliers from normal genetic makeup. Instead of examining every patient possible and looking for subtle differences, he looks for those people with exceptional characteristics — high pain tolerance, or high bone density, for example — and studies their genes.
The hope is that these so-called “black swans” may provide some genetic clues on how to help patients with the opposite problem, those with extreme pain sensitivity or osteoporosis.
Other sessions at AAAS have made a splash, too. Researchers from the large hadron collider at CERN and the TRIUMF centre at UBC gave an update on recent advances in particle physics, and one of the first sessions of the day sparked a controversy about government involvement in science journalism.
Stay tuned to our site for more updates from meeting tomorrow!