Health care professionals nationwide are tangled in a discussion regarding the ethics and regulations of the growing field of precision medicine. <\/p>\n
Also known as personalized medicine, the field aims to analyze patients genes so doctors can home in on treatments specific to each person. <\/p>\n
As the talks have intensified in recent years, concerns over privacy and insurance discrimination are colliding with benefits like predicting disease contraction and better, more-personalized treatment. <\/p>\n
The debate hit the University of Minnesota campus on Thursday with the start of a lecture series focusing on the standardization and policies of precision medicine. <\/p>\n
Heidi Rehm, a Harvard University pathology professor, gave the first in a three-part lecture in the Universitys Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment and Life Sciences series. <\/p>\n
Her lecture comes soon after President Barack Obamas announcement of a plan late last month that calls for a major biomedical research initiative that would create a biobank, or a collection of genetic data, on one million Americans. <\/p>\n
If Congress approves Obamas proposal, it would put individualized medicine more easily within doctors reach. <\/p>\n
Rehm, who studies precision medicine, said how the technology is used and the way results are interpreted should become more standardized than they currently are. <\/p>\n
University law professor and consortium chair Susan Wolf said the difference in technology and interpretation of genomes needs standardization. <\/p>\n
Right now its kind of a tower of Babel, Wolf said. And thats really tough on patients that may get different answers from different labs. <\/p>\n
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Precision medicine debate hits University campus<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Health care professionals nationwide are tangled in a discussion regarding the ethics and regulations of the growing field of precision medicine. Continue reading