Dr. Mark Boguski, a member of our Pathology Department, gave a short talk today to our Trustees about the evolution of the use of human genomics in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. I found it to be a great layperson's guide to the topic and include some video excerpts below.
If you cannot see the video click here.
Paul;
ReplyDeleteThanks for affording me the opportunity to ask Dr. Boguski what might be the financial ramifications of these admittedly exciting advances in genomics. He has permitted me to print his reply:
"I couldn't agree more that these future scenarios need a thorough business analysis. Indeed, we're not just pushing the technology, we're also engaging stakeholders from the legislative, regulatory and payor environments on the national level. We want to see if pathology can become a preventive and/or interventional specialty that uses genomics to help stop cancers (and other diseases) before they happen, not just diagnose and stratify patients to get expensive therapies. But it's easier and more practical to explain the potential with the scenario I talked about today.
Best regards,
Mark"
nonlocal MD
Dr. Boguski presents a nice overview and Clay Christensen is always an interesting and provocative thinker. Certainly the time horizon of diagnosis has been revolutionized in the last 20 years; however, that of drug development and therapeutic efficacy and safety trials have not kept pace. I fear that we are entering a period of time where we can easily diagnose, but lack the ability to treat our patients. What long term consequence does this have on our society and what is truly the value added? Perhaps a more disruptive technology, yet also beneficial would be to revolutionize the discovery process of therapeutics.
ReplyDelete