Ever since U.S. president Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union Address and mentioned about Precision Medicine Initiative, there's been a lot of buzz about it. What is it really? Why is the government willing to spend millions of dollars for it? How does it impact health?
Let's begin with the premise of this initiative. As its name suggests, it's about finding not only the best but the right method of treating a disease, whether it's as common as cancer or something very rare. However, to achieve that, doctors should have access to the genetic profile of the patient.
In other words, the main reason for the initiative is to truly customize a treatment protocol in order to significantly reduce or even eliminate the chances of failure. It finally recognizes that there's no such thing as a "one size fits all" treatment for anyone, but that the right treatment should be according to the genes of the patient.
As part of the initiative, the government is planning to spend more money on organizations such as the National Cancer Institute and the Food and Drug Administration. For example, the money may be used by NCI to help them determine what types of genes cause cells to evolve into cancer cells. We have already known that some genes can greatly increase the risk of certain types of cancer. How much is the government setting up for this initiative? It's a staggering $215 million, and it's expected to be set aside by 2016.
About $70 million, meanwhile, will be allotted for a very comprehensive DNA research. Although it isn't meant to build a DNA bank, it is to combine no less than 200 researches that have been worked on by many organizations. It's simply to create a more centralized way of organizing, storing, and analyzing information. Currently some of the genomes are kept by private companies that are also doing bio-research.
