Medicine expands to get personal
Agroup invests in molecular analysis, which determines a patient’s predisposition and tailors the treatment.
Ellen Smith received a death sentence for her advanced lung cancer five years ago, but it was commuted by a revolution in human genetics, drug therapies and clinical approaches unfolding at theUniversity ofColoradoHospital.
The advances have saved her life, by her reckoning, four times.
The accelerating speed of DNA sequencing, drug development and data analysis has led UCHealth, theUniversity ofColorado Medical School and Children’sHospitalColorado to join in an effort to fundamentally change theway they care for patients.
The partnership will invest more than $63 million over the next five years to create a newdivision, adding clinicians, genetic counselors, researchers and advanced practice nurses— and also expanding a DNA bank and advanced data warehouse. It’s called the Center for PersonalizedMedicine and Biomedical Informatics.
The pioneering field of personalized medicine uses molecular analysis to determine a patient’s predisposition to developing certain diseases and to deliver tailored medical treatment.
“There is no doubt in my mind that this will change howwe treat disease, how we teach our students, how physicians work, how we raise our kids and howwe conduct public health policy,” Dr. David Schwartz, chair of the CU Department ofMedicine, said of the center.