By Kiran Jayasinghe
Before releasing a drug to the world, scientists test a group of people. If the drug or medicine works on more than fifty percent of the people, they usually release it to the rest of the world.
But why doesn’t it work on everyone?
Scientists think that certain drugs work only on some people because they have similar genomes (a genome is a complete set of DNA – your genes), while others don’t. They think that if they looked at a person’s genome and prescribed medications according to the person’s genes, the medicine would work better. This method of practicing medicine is called “personalized medicine”.
Personalized medicine is a treatment that is, based on your genome, made to work better for you. Scientists can read a person’s genome almost overnight, and once they do, they can learn what type of genes they have, and what type of medicine will work better for them.
For instance, let’s say somebody has cancer. Some cancer drugs don’t work on all patients. In those situations, the doctor can sequence the patient’s genome, and figure out exactly what type of cancer the patient has and what exact type of medicine will work with the cancer.
Scientists think that personalized medicine will significantly change the way doctors treat patients in the next few years.
Hi Ladies, I read with interest your recent posts on the related subjects of personalised medicine and the human genome project.Even now we practice a bit of personalised medicine.For eg. when we prescribe a drug Azathioprine for intestinal disease we check the individual for his or her genotype expressing the enzyme Thiopurine Methyl Transferase.If the individual has low activity then a smaller dose is given to prevent side effects.A question for Kiran.Is there any downside to personalised medicine? Are there barriers to it being taken up widely? And Simran,studying an individuals genetic make up can predict with reasonable accuracy the chances of getting certain diseases,right?(No doubt you have heard of the much publicised surgery an actress had to prevent her getting breast cancer?).My question Simian is, leaving aside disease,will there be a day(God forbid) when by studying a persons genetic make up,it may possible predict what that person is going to be good at?Eg. looking at Svara’s genome, could we predict she’s going to be a good swimmer?!!So, Dear Simran, is it all down to Nature,or what place has Nuture?