By Joseph Varghese/Staff Reporter

Organised by the Qatar Foundation Research and Development (QF R&D) and held under the patronage of HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, chairperson, Qatar Foundation, ARC ‘14 supports QF R&D’s mission to build Qatar’s innovation and technology capacity while addressing immediate social needs in the community.

At the health debate, “Personalised and Precision Medicine in the next 10 years: Hype, hope or clinical reality?’ speakers highlighted the possibilities of realising the vision of personalised medicine.

Moderated by Dr Hilal Lashuel, of Qatar Biomedical Research Institute, the participants at the discussion included Peter Goodhand, of Global Alliance for Genomics and Health, Canada; Dr Hiroaki Kitano, of Systems Biology Institute, Japan; Dr Kathryn A Phillips, of University of California, San Francisco, US; Dr Hsinchun Chen, of National Science Foundation, US; Dr Hadi Abderrahim, of Qatar Biobank for Medical Research; and Dr Abdul-Badi Abou-Samra, of Hamad Medical Corporation.

Dr Phillips said Qatar has started several initiatives such as genomic medicine project, state-of-the-art research facilities and centres as well as setting up electronic records of patients among others. “These will give the country a great advantage as the population of the country is very small compared with other countries.”

Echoing Dr Phillips’s views, Dr Chen said Qatar can become the centre of personalised medicine. “A forward looking country like Qatar has taken the right step by embarking on genomic medicine. This can be the basis of personalised medicine. It can create the right momentum as personalised medicine is thinking about
future.”

Dr Phillips also highlighted the examples of Steve Jobs and Angelina Jolie who were treated on a level of personalised medicine. “While Steve Jobs’ life could not be saved as his genome mapping was not successful, Angelina Jolie could take precaution against breast cancer using a sort of personalised medicine approach.”

The panelists also pointed out that the most difficult task in personalised medicine will be to collect data and analyse them. “Enormous amounts of data will have to be collected. It is going to be a tsunami of data. This makes the process so tedious and can even be complicated. Everyone has to be extremely careful in the collection of data and the analysis of the same,” said Goodhand.

Experts also highlighted that genome medicine will be the basis of personalised and precision medicine. Genome mapping will enable the physicians to identify several features of the individuals and develop medicines and treatments accordingly.

Another point of discussion was the cost related to personalised medicine and whether it will result in healthcare disparity.

Dr Philips observed that in a sense, it is not going to be very expensive as thought by many but neither is it going to be cheap. “We have the technology and we have to make use of it. However personalised medicine has to keep pace with the drug companies and the regulatory issues of each country.”