News

Will the U.S. Keep Up in Precision Medicine?

A recent post on The Hill points out that Precision Medicine is the “next Gold Rush.” Is the U.S. doing what it takes to keep up with the rest of the world?

As the authors state, rather than being contested in gold mines, this race will be contested in research labs, clinics, and patent offices. They point out that federal funding commitments will be needed to keep America in the running. The entire article is available here.

At Forentis we believe that the private sector needs to step up too, thus the impetus behind our Fund. Investing in the companies that are delivering new discoveries and creating intellectual property should pay big dividends as the race for cures and early diagnoses heats up.

“…precision medicine allows clinicians to advance beyond the relatively coarse diagnostic and therapeutic categories of the present day, towards a more targeted, fine-grained system, based in part on genetics and molecularly defined phenotypes.”

Promise of Precision Medicine

An excellent article in Fortune’s Brainstorm Health series takes a look at the opportunities and challenges in today’s Precision Medicine focus. You can view the article and related video here.

“You pick up conditions way before people have symptoms and way before they’re likely to spread anywhere.”

— Shelley Hwang, Duke Cancer Institute

Farming the Sea for Biotech Discoveries

The sea covers around 70% of the earth, and contains around 97% of the world’s water. It’s also home to almost 240,000 species (that have been identified so far), from mammals and fish, down to bacteria and viruses. However, as a biotech resource, it is still untapped.

“There are still many societal challenges that the marine environment could help us to meet, such as antibiotic resistance. It is a source of chemical diversity, with novel targets and novel modes of action.”

— Jeanette Hammer Andersen, professor in marine bioprospecting at UiT-The Arctic University of Norway

Check out what some companies are doing in this area here.

Growing Personalized Blood Cells


An everyday problem in the medical community is a lack of blood donations which are needed for transfusions worldwide. Now researchers are looking to “brew blood.”

Using a small sample of a patient’s own blood, scientists can reprogram red blood cells back into master stem cells and then coax them back into red blood cells that are unique to that patient. They can then grow the red blood cells over and over again in the lab.

Check this new report from CBS here.

The Cancer Ecosystem

Cancer is increasingly being viewed as an ecosystem, a community in which tumor cells cooperate with other tumor cells and host cells in their microenvironment. As conditions change, the ecosystem evolves and adapts to ensure the survival and growth of cancer.

Successful treatment and prevention of cancer require an ecosystem, too—a coordinated unit of researchers, patients, health care professionals, health care systems, regulatory agencies, government, and industry. How can these partners work together as one interconnected community?

Sandra J. Horning, the Chief Medical Officer and Global Head of Product Development at Genentech and Roche has some ideas. Check them out here.

“Importantly, basic scientific research that unlocks the mysteries of cancer and discovers targets for therapy, early detection, and prevention is the core of a healthy ecosystem to tame the disease.”

Cancer subtypes could be distinguished using metabolomic analysis

The emerging field of metabolomics has the potential to contribute significantly to biomarker discovery and cancer. While other techniques, such as DNA sequencing, have led to significant advances in precision oncology, metabolomics has yet to make its mark on the field.

New methods of using metabolomics as a tool for clinical cancer research and care were presented at the 2nd Annual Biomarker Conference by CureMatch, developer of a decision support platform for combination therapy in cancer.
See the full story at Oncology Central.

Researchers Link Noncoding Genetic Variants to Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics studying the DNA of children with severe language problems say they have identified genetic variants in the 3′ untranslated region genome (3’UTRome), which is part of the noncoding part of the genome.

“Our study shows that the identification and testing of noncoding variants will foster our understanding of the genetic causes of neurodevelopmental disorders, which is crucial in the long-term for the design of new and effective therapeutics.”

— Sonja Vernes, Ph.D.
Get the full story at Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News

New Article in GEN

Atomic Force Microscopy – Say What??

Knowledge of protein folding is important because proteins must assume the correct three-dimensional structure to function properly. Misfolding may inactivate a protein or make it toxic. A new approach has allowed JILA scientists to capture the protein’s folding steps at microsecond resolution.

By showing how the folding of membrane proteins can be studied in more detail, JILA scientists have shown how researchers may better understand previously obscure biophysical processes related to diseases such as neurodegeneration and cancer.

Get the full story at Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

New Article in GEN

“The increased complexity was stunning. Better instruments revealed all sorts of hidden dynamics that were obscured over the last 17 years when using conventional technology.”

— Tom Perkins, Ph.D., the leader of the team at JILA

New Report on Personalized Medicine Released

For more than two millennia, medicine has maintained its aspiration of being personalized. In ancient times, Hippocrates combined an assessment of the four humors — blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile — to determine the best course of treatment for each patient. Today, the sequence of the four chemical building blocks that comprise DNA, coupled with telltale proteins in the blood, enable more accurate medical predictions.

A new report from the Personalized Medicine Coalition describes the current state of personalized medicine and the opportunities in the future.

Get the full report here.

“The power in tailored therapeutics is for us to say more clearly to payers, providers, and patients: ‘this drug is not for everyone, but it is for you.’ That is exceedingly powerful.”

–John C. Lechleiter, Ph.D. former Chairman, President, and CEO, Eli Lilly and Company

Genes in Fat Cells May Contribute to Dangerous Diseases

A sweeping international effort is connecting the dots between genes in our fat cells and our risk for obesity and cardiometabolic diseases such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. The researchers have identified approximately 90 genes found in fat that could play important roles in such diseases – and could be targeted to develop new treatments or cures.

“Genetic factors do not work in isolation – they work in a holistic way, so I think that these kind of studies that we are publishing are key to understanding what’s happening in human populations.”

— Mete Civelek of the University of Virginia School of Medicine
Read the entire article at Science Blog