US Precision-Medicine Proposal Sparks Questions
By Sara Reardon,
Nature
| 01. 22. 2015
Untitled Document
With the pipeline of traditional drugs drying up, researchers are increasingly attempting to customize treatments based on a person's genetics or environment. Now the US government wants to get in on the act.
During his State of the Union address to Congress on 20 January, President Barack Obama announced a programme called the Precision Medicine Initiative. “I want the country that eliminated polio and mapped the human genome to lead a new era of medicine — one that delivers the right treatment at the right time,” he said.
The White House is remaining tight-lipped about the details of the programme, declining to answer questions from Nature — as is the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is expected to be a key partner in the effort. But Kay Holcombe, senior vice-president for science policy at the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) in Washington DC, says that her conversations with the NIH suggest that the agency will seek to match genome information with many other types of data, such as health records and blood-test results.
The agency seems to...
Related Articles
By Eric Schmidt, TIME | 04.16.2024
Imagine a world where everything from plastics to concrete is produced from biomass. Personalized cell and gene therapies prevent pandemics and treat previously incurable genetic diseases. Meat is lab-grown; enhanced nutrient grains are climate-resistant. This is what the future could...
By Harold Brubaker, The Philadelphia Inquirer | 04.04.2024
Acompany started by University of Pennsylvania scientist Jim Wilson has received FDA approval to test a form of gene editing in infants for the first time in the United States, the company said Thursday.
The Plymouth Meeting company, iECURE, is...
By Carey Gillan, UnSpun | 03.18.2024
A Mexican standoff with the United States turned into a Mexican smack-down this month with the release of Mexico’s formal rebuttal to US efforts to overturn limits Mexico has ordered on the use of genetically modified (GM) corn and the...
By Billy Perrigo, TIME | 03.11.2024
The U.S. government must move “quickly and decisively” to avert substantial national security risks stemming from artificial intelligence (AI) which could, in the worst case, cause an “extinction-level threat to the human species,” says a report commissioned by the U.S...