Personalized Medicine: A systems-based approach
*Dr.* [1] [1] http://www.articlesbase.com/authors/dr-greg-maguire/238954
By on Feb 23, 2011Dr. Greg Maguire, cofounder and CEO of BioRegenerative Sciences, on the coming personalized medicine revolution in healthcare
A revolution is taking place in healthcare: personalized medicine.
Many have recognized the coming transformation, and therefore healthcare congresses involving scientists, physicians, politicians, business people, ethicists, and other healthcare workers are now taking place in hopes of better understanding the coming revolution and providing better planning for the coming changes.
One such important meeting will be held in London in March: Personalised Medicine & Diagnostics Europe.
The meeting has attracted participants from around the world, involving people from all aspects of relevant institutions.
Here are just a few examples of many changes underlying the coming revolution.
In Health Care Will Not Reform Itself: A Users Guide to Refocusing and Reforming American Health Care, George Halvorson, CEO of Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, CA, recommends the following:
- Use a preventive approach for the chronic conditions that account for the lions share of medical costs
- Coordinate patient care through a full commitment to information technology
- Increase the pool of contributors by mandating universal insurance
- Rearrange priorities by making health maintenance profitable
- Convene a national committee to figure out the right thing and make it easy to do
While the preventative approach and health maintenance concepts are already implemented in many European countries, this is not true in most parts of the world, including the United States.
From the scientific and technological aspects of the revolution, we see the advent of systemsbiology, stem cell therapeutics, and the development of new technologies, such as an easy, inexpensive semiconductor chip that reads DNA sequences and may bring the power of sequencing to a much broader user basein the science and diagnostics world.
This desktop machine, developed by biotech companyIon Torrent, based in Connecticut and California, is now on saleand will cost about $50,000, approximately one-tenth the cost of other sequencing machines on the market.
While such innovations will help to revolutionize healthcare, important challenges still present high hurdles.
For example, a new study in Nature Genetics (Jan. 3, 2011) amplifies what I have pointed out in previous publications (Maguire et al, 2006); namely, that genetic sequencing alone is not enough to understand human disease.
This study demonstrates the need to know the extent to which gene variants in question are detrimental; i.e., how do the gene variants affect individual cells or organs and what is the result on human development or disease?
Among other issues, the study shows that every patient has his or her own set of genetic variants and most of these will not be found at sufficient frequency in the general population so a diagnostician can make a clear medical statement about their case.
Personalized medicine business models
In terms of the business structures that will exist as we move to personalized medicine and therapeutics, here too a revolution is likely to take place.
As we move from our present business models to the model for personalized medicine and therapeutics, what structures are likely to evolve in support of big pharmas transition from the development of blockbuster drugs to niche-constrained drugs?
AtBioRegenerative Sciences, Inc. (BRS), we have approached this coming challenge in three fundamental ways.
First, on the therapeutic development side of our business, BRS harnesses the power of stem cells and mimics the ways in which nature has evolved very powerful healing mechanisms.
In this manner, BRS captures the healing power of the molecules released from stem cells, where these molecules orchestrate a healing cascade of events in the damaged tissue.
Because these molecules released from stem cells (SRM) present no negative antigenic properties and are highly conserved among individuals, the molecules present no rejection when used across a wide patient population.
Second, on the medical side of our business, BRS has implemented autologous stem cell medical procedures that harness the power not only of the stem cells themselves but more importantly the molecules the autologous stem cells release.
Third, stem cells provide a very effective means for performing personalized diagnostics.
Stem cells can be easily sampled from a patient through a number of means and analyzed directly or analyzed after modifications, such as iPSC methodologies to transform the cells into personalized cell types or even personalized organs.
In vitro diagnostic tests can then be performed on the personalized cells or tissue to make fundamental predictive analyses, leading to improved prognosis and prescriptions.
All three of these methods used at BRS are means to institute a personalized systems approach to healthcare.
Systems-based diagnostics and therapeutics
These new technologies represent a systems-based means for diagnostics and therapeutics.
The systems approach is in contradistinction to the reductionist approach.
Genomics looks at the totality of the genome, not just one gene, just as the other omics, such as metabolomics, describe all of the biochemical pathways involved in metabolism.
Likewise, at BRS, we use a systems approach for the development of systems-based therapeutics.
Mimicking the mechanisms of Mother Nature, BRS uses a combination of molecules instead of one molecule in the traditional reductionist approach, which serves to target multiple pathways through the use of a multitude of molecules leading to a complete tissue-healing cascade involving a multitude of mechanisms.
These are but a few examples of the changes currently under way.
What is clear from looking at the overall state of the many factors involved in healthcare is that a major change is taking place.
While there are still many hurdles, one by one these obstacles are steadily being overcome. (For more on personalized medicine, see Personalized medicine: A kick-start for innovation?.)
For all the latest advances in personalized medicine, join Dr. Greg Maguire and the sectors key players at Personalized Medicine & Diagnostics Europe on March 9 and 10 in London.
Dr. Greg Maguire has spent over 20 years in research and development as a professor of neuroscience and ophthalmology at the UCSD School of Medicine. He is cofounder and CEO of BioRegenerative Sciences, Inc., andpresident of the San Diego Neuroscience Group at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA. Dr. Maguires blog, Health, Stem Cells & Technology, can be viewed at http://healthstemcellstechnology.blogspot.com/. His email is gmaguire@bioregenerativesciences.com