As Center for Genomics, Stanford Co-Hosts Personalized Medicine World Conference
January 14, 2011
Media Contact: Liat Kobza, 650.723.1462
The future of medicine is clear—more and more of our health care will be crafted to the personal genetics of each patient, whether stem cells or gene mapping or disease biomarkers. At Stanford, a world-recognized group of physician-scientists are bringing that future closer each day.
In June, Stanford’s Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine opened, blending rapid genome sequencing technology with clinical and research efforts in genomics, bioinformatics and molecular genetic pathology. This Tuesday and Wednesday, hundreds of physicians and researchers from around the world will join experts in technology, business and government for the Personalized Medicine World Conference at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Co-sponsored by Stanford Hospital & Clinics, the conference represents an important collective conversation about all aspects of personalized medicine.
“This is a new science with controversies and myths and unanswered questions,” said Barbara Ralston, Stanford Hospital’s Vice President, Guest Services and International Medicine. “This conference is a forum to address the hopes and the risks—all of personalized medicine’s big picture.”
Now in its third year, the conference’s size reflects not only scientific advances, but heightened public interest and debate, Ralston said. About 500 people attended the first conference; this year’s 1,000 participants sold out the space. More than 22 Stanford faculty from the medical, business and law schools will be part of the conference’s presentations and forums.
It was an easy decision for Stanford to co-host the conference. “We are known for pioneering research and innovative treatment,” Ralston said. “As a high-end specialty hospital, we are the end point of research’s translation to treatment. We want to support education and discussion about personalized medicine.”
At Stanford, “our intention is to integrate genomics information with every aspect of medicine,” said conference speaker Michael Snyder, PhD, director of the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine. He chairs Stanford’s Department of Genetics and is a member of Stanford’s Cancer Center.
What he sees in the relatively near future is “a day when every person who walks into Stanford Hospital & Clinics can, if they choose to do so, have their entire genome sequenced to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of their unique conditions and disorders.”
Snyder’s lab was the first to perform a large-scale functional genomics project in any organism and built the first high-resolution tiling array for the entire human genome.
Stephen Galli, MD, co-director of the Center, will also speak at the conference. He is Stanford’s Chair of Pathology and a professor of microbiology and immunology. Other Stanford speakers include Garry Nolan, Ph.D. Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. His lab focuses on the analysis of biological events at the single cell level using novel genetic and FACS-based approaches at the intersection of immunology and autoimmunity. Renee A. Reijo Pera, PhD, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology & Director of the Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education will also speak. Time Magazine recognized her laboratory for one of the top ten medical breakthroughs of 2010.
A significant cluster of other Stanford physician-scientists have broken ground in new avenues to make medicine more specific to each patient. Professor of Pathology and Medicine Edgar E. Engleman, MD; Chief of the Division of Oncology and Professor of Immunology and Rheumatology Ronald Levy and Professor of Immunology and Rheumatology Samuel Strober, MD, are using people’s own immune system cells in various combinations with a cancer-specific immune boost for a therapeutic vaccine. While much work remains to be done, “our rate of discovery has increased and our level of sophistication is enormously better,” Engleman said.
Last May, Stanford physicians Stephen Quake at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Euan Ashley, who directs the new Stanford Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease, published an article in Lancet magazine describing what a physician could face with a patient and patient’s genome that lays out many possible risks and vulnerabilities. The information is far from straightforward and, in fact, still lacks certain information that current technology cannot
Stanford is also home to the Pharmacogenetics and Pharmacogenomics Knowledge Base, part of medicine’s growing ability to know which patients will or will not respond to certain medication.
In cancer treatment, that information can save time when time is of the essence and prevent patients from enduring the difficult side effects of treatment without benefit. Such information can also prevent damage that drugs might do to someone with risk factors for heart attack or stroke.
by Sara Wykes
About Stanford Hospital & Clinics
Stanford Hospital & Clinics is known worldwide for advanced treatment of complex disorders in areas such as cardiovascular care, cancer treatment, neurosciences, surgery, and organ transplants. It is currently ranked in the top 20 on the U.S. News & World Report’s "America's Best Hospitals" list and No. 1 in the San Jose Metropolitan area. Stanford Hospital & Clinics is internationally recognized for translating medical breakthroughs into the care of patients. The Stanford University Medical Center is comprised of three world renowned institutions: Stanford Hospital & Clinics, the Stanford University School of Medicine, the oldest medical school in the Western United States, and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, an adjacent pediatric and obstetric teaching hospital providing general acute and tertiary care. For more information, visit http://stanfordhospital.org/.