We had a chance to sit down with Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn to discuss telomeres and telomerase and their impact on the human lifespan.

To learn more about the different AI and machine learning sessions planned for PMWC 2018 SV, see the full agenda here.

Q: Your research and discovery around telomeres has been groundbreaking. Why are telomeres so important and what can we learn about them for future applications such as extending life span?

A: Science continues to uncover ever more critical details about telomeres and telomerase, the enzyme that makes and nourishes telomeres. Telomeres are linked with aging and aging-related diseases, such as stroke, osteoporosis, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and, in more complex ways, most human cancers. The next step is to interpret this knowledge into ways to combat and even prevent diseases. While some research has fed a hope that controlling the activity of telomerase could keep us healthier, that would, however, mean managing the consequent and poorly understood potential increase in risks for cancers. Early impactful research has shown that shutting down telomerase, or disabling telomeres while a cell is dividing, for example, causes a cancer cell to die. Such insights may prove valuable in creating better therapies for killing cancers. So, yes, telomeres are very important in human life and health, but for many more reasons than the potential to extend life span.

 

 

Q: Do we have enough data (time course over many years from same set of individuals) that demonstrate that living healthy has a direct impact on telomere length?

A: Indeed we do. Relevant data has accumulated in thousands of published, peer-reviewed studies over the last thirty or so years. At an increasing pace, data is appearing to demonstrate that eating nutritious foods, getting ample sleep, exercising regularly, managing stress, and engaging in positive social interactions all support telomere maintenance. Because this data has such strong relevance for trying to live a healthier life, Elissa Epel and I co-authored a book called The Telomere Effect to share this data in a readable format with the public.

 

 

Q: Will we one day be able to extend shortened telomere length and as a result extend life span? How much is life span a multifactorial process, i.e.,an interplay between telomeres and other factors, like genetic factors?

A: Life span is most certainly a multifactorial process, involving genetics and epigenetics, environment, nutrition, psychology and daily behaviors. It is too simplistic and even dangerous to suggest that merely extending telomere length will result in an extended life span. For example, telomerase is linked with certain cancers. Research has shown that telomerase activity in malignant cancer cells is turned up ten to hundreds of times as high as in normal cells. Finding a way to turn off telomerase, targeting only the cancer cells, might one day be a potent weapon for fighting cancer. Paradoxically, however, some types of cancers are more likely to develop when too little available telomerase makes telomeres shorter. This occurs in blood cancers like leukemia, in skin cancers besides melanoma, and in some gastrointestinal cancers, such as pancreatic cancer.

 

Telomerase activity presents a delicate balancing act and scientists are delving deep into studies about the molecular switches that control this enzyme. Further sophistication of our knowledge may allow us to someday tune the telomerase activity in aging cells or modulate it downward in cancer cells. In the meantime, exercise, good sleep, healthful diets, positive social interactions and managing stress remain the best bets for extending healthspan.

 

Q: What does the future have in stake to harness the power of telomerase and telomere length for the human population? If aging can be slowed, can we also slow chronic diseases or should they and will they be treated individually?

A: The more that scientists examine the intricacies of the human body, right down to the molecular level, the more we realize how interconnected all of these mechanisms are. Thus, manipulating one mechanism has the potential to positively or negatively impact other mechanisms. It’s essential to proceed carefully. Ideally, if we can slow aging while preserving health, we should also be able to slow development of the chronic diseases associated with aging.

 

 

Q: How will precision medicine extend life span and through what means?

A: Precision medicine will extend life span because it will help doctors determine more expediently the precise therapeutic that will be most effective on an individual patient. No single physician can have knowledge of every single study and its results. But by compiling data from all of the scientific and medical studies, and including all of the various specifics, such as which genetic profile is most likely to be affected by which drug, doctors will be able to avoid the trial-and-error approach toward identifying an effective therapeutic and thus will be able to extend the healthful lives of their patients. And similarly, precision prevention will be even more powerful.

 

 

Q: What issues/challenges will arise with an ever-growing “older” population? What impact will it have on health care?

A: According to a recent NIH report, 8.5% of the world’s population is currently age 65 or over; by 2050 the percentage will rise to 17%, or 1.6 billion people. An aging population that doesn’t manage, through scientific or technological progress, to maintain health and therefore delay the onset of aging-related diseases will strain the resources of both society and the planet. We will require more hospitals and more long-term care facilities and also more specially trained staff. Individual, family and broader socio-economic burdens will increase as well. That’s why so many scientists at the Salk Institute are pursuing research into the mechanisms of the aging process.

 

 

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

A: I believe we must look to and depend upon scientific discovery to solve the world’s problems. If government leaders united in a diversified global strategy for investing in scientific research, we could create a better world—one in which the planet’s environment is thriving, every person as a reliable supply of nutritious food, and people live long, productive lives.

 

 

Interview with Gabriel Bien-Willner of Palmetto GBA

Q: What does your role entail as the director of the MolDX program at Palmetto GBA?

A: The job directing MolDX is multifaceted; first and foremost the MolDX program is responsible for assessing molecular diagnostic tests on the market and makes coverage and pricing determinations for such tests and technology. This is usually done through local coverage determination policies or technical assessments.

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Interview with Peter Marks of FDA

Q: The CBER’s Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy Designation program has been very successful, with about 100 requests for designation in the two years of its existence. Can you please tell us about the program and how it was put together?

A: The Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) Designation program came into being as part of the 21st Century Cures Act that was signed into law on December 13, 2016.

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Interview with Calum MacRae of Harvard Medical School

Q: What patient data do we need to better understand the underlying cause of disease and how to prevent it?

A: Medicine at present is highly underdetermined and data poor. To be precise, one must be comprehensive, so medicine (with our consent) will use not only what we currently conceive of as biomedical information, but also data from across our lives.

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Headlines from PMWC 2019 Silicon Valley

A big ‘Thank You’ to all of our presenters and attendees for celebrating 10 years of precision medicine progress with us! PMWC 2019 Silicon Valley was attended by 2000 participants from 35 countries, which included over 400 speakers in 5 parallel tracks!

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Interview with Ken Bloom of Ambry Genetics

Q: Tell us more about your organization/company. What patient population are you serving and which services are you specializing in?

A: Ambry Genetics is a recognized leader in high quality complex genetic testing. We seek to find the genomic cause or contributors to rare diseases, abnormal phenotypes and hereditary disorders.

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Interview with Lee Pierce of Sirius Computer Solutions

Q: What is the state of big data and analytics in healthcare, and how to best use the reams of data available?

A: More than ever, Healthcare organizations are achieving measurable value through use of their data and analytics assets. There is more raw material available than ever to create value. This raw material is the data flowing from internal systems and applications and also from devices and systems external to healthcare organizations.

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Interview with Anita Nelsen of PAREXEL

Q: There are various new, emerging technologies that bring us closer towards a cure for life-threatening disorders such as cancer, HIV, or Huntington’s disease. Prominent examples include the popular gene editing tool CRISPR or new and improved cell and gene therapies. By when can we expect these new technologies being part of routine clinical care?

A: Today’s emerging technologies are making the promise of individualized treatment a reality.

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Interview with Ilan Kirsch of Adaptive Biotechnologies

Q: The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded recently to James Allison and Tasuku Honjo for their work on unleashing the body’s immune system to attack cancer, a breakthrough that has led to an entirely new class of drugs and brought lasting remissions to many patients who had run out of options. The Nobel committee hailed their accomplishments as establishing “an entirely new principle for cancer therapy.” What is your first-hand experience the impact that those new drugs had on patients?

A: For decades cancer was viewed as solely a cell-autonomous condition.

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BMS buys Celgene | Lilly buys Loxo Oncology – Does this Signal a Return to Strong Deal-Making Activities in 2019?

Bristol-Myers Squibb’s blockbuster $74B deal to buy Celgene creates an oncology powerhouse amid industrywide excitement about the rapidly evolving science and explosive growth of the sector. The agreement could signal a return to deal-making for the pharmaceutical industry in the $133B global oncology therapeutics market.

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Interview with Gini Deshpande of NuMedii

Q: What need is NuMedii addressing?

A: NuMedii, has been pioneering the use of Big Data, artificial intelligence (AI) and systems biology since 2010 to accelerate the discovery of precision therapies to address high unmet medical needs. Artificial Intelligence approaches are a natural fit to harness Big Data as they provide a framework to ‘train’ computers to recognize patterns and sift through vast amounts of new and existing genomic

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Interview with Minnie Sarwal of UCSF

Q: Genomic medicine is entering more hospitals and bringing with it non-invasive technology that can be used to better target and treat diseases. What are some key milestones that contributed to this trend?

A: Completion of complete sequence data from the human genome project, and the advances in proteomic, microRNA and epigenetic assays added a layer of pathway biology to the understanding of human diseases.

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Interview with Shidong Jia of Predicine

Q: Once sequencing has been validated as a clinical solution via trusted workflows, and coinciding with the technological developments driving costs lower, we can expect accelerated human genome profiling for clinical Dx. How soon, do you think, will we see accelerated growth and what can we expect?

A: We will see accelerated human genome profiling for clinical Dx in 2019 and the coming years as more biomarker-based cancer drugs are gaining approval.

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Interview with Iya Khalil of GNS Healthcare

Q: Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques have sent vast waves across healthcare, even fueling an active discussion of whether AI doctors will eventually replace human physicians in the future. Do you believe that human physicians will be replaced by machines in the foreseeable future? What are your thoughts?

A: I think that there’s a lot of speculation and uncertainty around AI, but I don’t foresee a time when we won’t need physicians.

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Interview with Ilya Michael Rachman of Immix Biopharma Inc.

Q: The Nobel Price in Medicine was awarded recently to James Allison and Tasuku for their work on unleashing the body’s immune system to attack cancer, a breakthrough that has led to an entirely new class of drugs and brought lasting remissions to many patients who had run out of options. The Nobel committee hailed their accomplishments as establishing “an entirely new principle for cancer therapy.” Besides CAR T-cell therapy what do you think next generation immunotherapies will look like to successfully combat cancer?

A: The next generation of immunotherapies will build on the insights discovered by immunologists like James Allison and Tasuku Honjo and extend them to modify the body’s response to tumors.

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Join me to Kick off PMWC Silicon Valley in the Santa Clara Convention Center, Focusing on Every Element of Precision Medicine

My team worked in collaboration with Bill Dalton, Kim Blackwell, Atul Butte / India Hook Barnard, Nancy Davidson and Sharon Terry to create a program that touches every component of precision medicine while bringing together all of its key stakeholders. Leading participating institutions including Stanford Health Care, UCSF, Duke Health, Duke University, John Hopkins University, University of Michigan and more will share their learnings and experiences and their successes and challenges, as they make precision medicine the new standard of care for all.

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Johns Hopkins
University Of Michigan

The Precision Medicine World Conference (PMWC), in its 17th installment, will take place in the Santa Clara Convention Center (Silicon Valley) on January 21-24, 2020. The program will traverse innovative technologies, thriving initiatives, and clinical case studies that enable the translation of precision medicine into direct improvements in health care. Conference attendees will have an opportunity to learn first-hand about the latest developments and advancements in precision medicine and cutting-edge new strategies and solutions that are changing how patients are treated.

See 2019 Agenda highlights:

  • Five tracks will showcase sessions on the latest advancements in precision medicine which include, but are not limited to:
    • AI & Data Science Showcase
    • Clinical & Research Tools Showcase
    • Clinical Dx Showcase
    • Creating Clinical Value with Liquid Biopsy ctDNA, etc.
    • Digital Health/Health and Wellness
    • Digital Phenotyping
    • Diversity in Precision Medicine
    • Drug Development (PPPs)
    • Early Days of Life Sequencing
    • Emerging Technologies in PM
    • Emerging Therapeutic Showcase
    • FDA Efforts to Accelerate PM
    • Gene Editing
    • Genomic Profiling Showcase
    • Immunotherapy Sessions & Showcase
    • Implementation into Health Care Delivery
    • Large Scale Bio-data Resources to Support Drug Development (PPPs)
    • Microbial Profiling Showcase
    • Microbiome
    • Neoantigens
    • Next-Gen. Workforce of PM
    • Non-Clinical Services Showcase
    • Pharmacogenomics
    • Point-of Care Dx Platform
    • Precision Public Health
    • Rare Disease Diagnosis
    • Resilience
    • Robust Clinical Decision Support Tools
    • Wellness and Aging Showcase

See 2019 Agenda highlights:

    • Five tracks will showcase sessions on the latest advancements in precision medicine which include, but are not limited to:
      • AI & Data Science Showcase
      • Clinical & Research Tools Showcase
      • Clinical Dx Showcase
      • Creating Clinical Value with Liquid Biopsy ctDNA, etc.
      • Digital Health/Health and Wellness
      • Digital Phenotyping
      • Diversity in Precision Medicine
      • Drug Development (PPPs)
      • Early Days of Life Sequencing
      • Emerging Technologies in PM
      • Emerging Therapeutic Showcase
      • FDA Efforts to Accelerate PM
      • Gene Editing / CRISPR
      • Genomic Profiling Showcase
      • Immunotherapy Sessions & Showcase
      • Implementation into Health Care Delivery
      • Large Scale Bio-data Resources to Support Drug Development (PPPs)
      • Microbial Profiling Showcase
      • Microbiome
      • Neoantigens
      • Next-Gen. Workforce of PM
      • Non-Clinical Services Showcase
      • Pharmacogenomics
      • Point-of Care Dx Platform
      • Precision Public Health
      • Rare Disease Diagnosis
      • Resilience
      • Robust Clinical Decision Support Tools
      • Wellness and Aging Showcase
  • Luminary and Pioneer Awards, honoring individuals who contributed, and continue to contribute, to the field of Precision Medicine
  • 2000+ multidisciplinary attendees, from across the entire spectrum of healthcare, representing different types of companies, technologies, and medical centers with leadership roles in precision medicine
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