Genetics and the Future of Medicine

In an issue of Cell, Snyder, molecular geneticist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and his team of 40 researchers published detailed results of Snyder's blood tests which included biochemical data showing the status of his body's immune system, metabolism and gene activity. Snyder analyzed his blood over a 14 month period 20 different times to find the links at different time points between the 3.2 billion nucleotides of DNA in his genome and more than 3 billion fluctuations in his blood molecules such as proteins, metabolites, microRNAs, cytokines, antibodies, glucose, and gene transcripts.  Daniel MacArthur, a genomics researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, says the "fascinating study" is much more informative than simply looking at someone's static genome sequence. (Snyder's group decoded his at the beginning of the project.) "The nice feature of this study is that it profiles many of the dynamic molecular changes that our body experiences in response to environmental stresses."

Snyder feels with the technology available today we are not practicing medicine at the level it should be. The blood tests done today can test for 20 things max, and he feels that inorder to get a better picture we should be able to test for thousands of things and he has proved it that it is possible with the technology out there.   



At the first blood draw, Snyder had a cold and the scientists were able to track how the rhinovirus affect the human body biochemically in more detail than ever before. After the initial sequencing of his DNA, Snyder found that he had predisposition for type 2 diabetes, but since no one his family had diabetes and was at a healthy weight he didn't take it too seriously. However, they started paying close attention to biomarkers related to diabetes, insulin and glucose pathways and when later he became infected with respiratory syncytial virus his glucose levels went up dramatically almost immediately. He believes that even though he had a predisposition to diabetes, the viral infection was the trigger. Currently there is no connection between viral infections and type 2 diabetes, but Snyder believes that this type of analysis will allow us to find many missing links and believes this to be the future of medicine.  Last summer he co-founded a company in Palo Alto, Personalis, which aims to help clinicians make sense of genomic information.

I think with this study shows how genetics will be becoming an intergral part of medicine in both preventing and treating diseases.