Jeff Gordon, The “Father of the Microbiome” On The Promises and Challenges of the Microbiome in Precision Medicine
The microbiome significantly impacts human health, playing a crucial role in maintaining health and preventing disease. It influences endocrinology, physiology, and even neurology, altering the outcome of many different disease states, and it has been shown to augment drug responses and tolerance. In parallel to your normal microbiota, headlining pathogens are grabbing our attention, as we seem to face a major epidemic or viral outbreak of some sort each year, whether it is Zika, Ebola, or the Coronavirus MERS-CoV.
read moreQ&A with Jeff Balser, Dean of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, President & CEO VUMC
Q: What is your vision for personalized care?
A: While the term “personalized care” has become popular contemporary with the maturation of genomic medicine, it is clear that the entire context of care – including social, behavioral, and environmental factors – drives the outcomes we are hoping to achieve.
read moreQ&A with All of Us Research Program Deputy Director Stephanie Devaney, Ph.D.
Q1a: You are the Deputy Director of the All of Us Research Program. What is your role as the deputy director and why is this initiative so important?
A: As deputy director, my primary role is to work closely with the All of Us Director Eric Dishman in guiding the program from concept to reality. Our vision is to enable a healthier future for all of us by building a data resource that scientists can use to speed up research and the development of individualized approaches to prevention and treatment.
read moreInterview with Honoree Jeffrey Gordon, PMWC 2018 Duke Luminary Honoree
Q: Why is the microbiome so important in the context of precision medicine?
A: We can’t ignore a part of our body that is composed of tens and tens of trillions cells, albeit microbial – a population that collectively contains at least two orders of magnitude more genes than in our Homo sapiens genome, endows us with attributes and capabilities that we have not had to evolve on our own, and contributes to our intra- and interpersonal biological variations as well as health status.
read moreCall to the Health Care Community to Execute on Next Steps for a Wider Adoption and Implementation of Precision Medicine
The recent Facebook data breach, genetic data sleuthing by the FBI that led to the Golden State Killer, and the soon-to-be-implemented European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), has put data privacy and security front and center.
read moreData Privacy, the Security, And Ownership
The recent Facebook data breach, genetic data sleuthing by the FBI that led to the Golden State Killer, and the soon-to-be-implemented European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), has put data privacy and security front and center.
read moreQ&A with Jason Crites of IBM & Piers Nash of Health2047 Speaking at PMWC 2018 Michigan in June
Q: What need is IBM and Health2047 addressing in the healthcare/life sciences sector?
Jason (IBM): The industry is undergoing a significant transformation as reimbursement shifts from fee-for-service to value-based outcomes in the face of regulatory uncertainty.
read moreDr. Francis Collins of NIH at June PMWC Michigan- Launch of Nationwide Participation Enrollment!
This past Sunday—May 6, 2018—the program reached a major milestone with the start of the nationwide participation enrollment! The All of Us Research Program, part of the Precision Medicine Initiative that was famously announced by President Barack Obama at the 2015 State of the Union address, aims to enroll a total of 1 million Americans.
read moreMeet Dr. Gil Omenn, Director of the University of Michigan Center for Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics on June 6th at PMWC 2018 Michigan
Q: What are the objectives of the Human Proteome Project and what are some of the recent breakthrough discoveries?
The HUPO Human Proteome Project has two overarching goals: (1) to complete the protein parts list, with at least one protein product from each of the ~20,000 protein-coding genes along with sequence variants, splice variants, and post-translational modifications, with characterization of their functions;…
read moreMeet Amir Dan Rubin, CEO of One Medical on June 6th at PMWC 2018 Michigan
Q: What are some of the biggest contributors to these challenges and how can we overcome them?
A: One of the underlying challenges driving the rising the cost of health care is that most of the health system’s stakeholders have few incentives, if not outright disincentives, to manage expenditures.
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