Stephen Meyn, incoming executive director for the new UW Center for Human Genomics and Precision Medicine, will be wasting no time in preparing for the planned facility.
Construction on the new building is scheduled to begin in Madison in summer 2018 and finish up by around 2020. But he will be moving to Madison as early as this November to build up the community surrounding precision genomic medicine activity.
Precision medicine in general represents “a paradigm shift in how to practice medicine,” according to Meyn, who currently works as a professor of molecular genetics and pediatrics at the University of Toronto.
Genomics and precision medicine involve analyzing an individual’s genetic code, environment and other unique factors so as to guide treatment toward the option most likely to succeed.
“We see this as a tool which could be used by many people at many points in their lives,” he told WisBusiness.com.
Meyn says he will be drawing on people already at UW, but will have the opportunity to recruit new faculty as well. He will also begin planning center activities for students and scientists alike.
In his new role, Meyn says he will put special attention on two objectives: one, to expand cancer genomics efforts, studying the genetics of tumors in hopes of improving treatments; and two, to create a network for rare, undiagnosed disorders.
He says this second objective is a promising area, because “so many” people are affected by mysterious, rare conditions. He cited estimates of 7,000 or more genetic disorders for which the causal gene has yet to be found, saying some 7 percent of the population is affected.
“Each might be rare, but if you add them all up, people think they affect almost half a million people in Wisconsin… and we actually think the numbers are a bit higher, since they go undiagnosed,” he said.
These individuals have been on a “diagnostic odyssey,” just trying to find answers, he said. “We think precision genomic medicine can help these people.”
Creating this network will involve effort not only from the medical school, but also researchers at universities and clinicians across the state, he said. Working with health organizations will be important, Meyn added, mentioning Marshfield Clinic as a possible future partner.
Meyn says genomic medicine has already seen some use, with the “biggest impact” in adult cancer therapy. Doctors are able to perform DNA analysis of tumors, and then apply precision therapies based on this deeper level of understanding.
“That’s already started but we plan to expand it,” he said, mentioning pediatric oncology as an avenue to explore.
Because genomics is a relatively new field, most physicians are not up to speed on the latest studies and applications, Meyn said, but that provides an opportunity along with the challenge. He says the center will be developing new ways to make genomic more accessible to clinicians in general, not just specialists in the field.
“Big educational piece here — also looking in the long term, we expect to build out the formal educational training opportunities as well,” he said.
As for the undiagnosed disorder network, Meyn expects “ample opportunities for basic scientists to be involved.”
“I don’t want to oversell our current abilities,” he said. “Identifying variations of those genes — there will be lots of opportunity for research on that side.”
Meyn says he sees potential for the center to be more than a physical entity; a goal is to build a community of people interested in genomic medicine in all its applications. He says it will bring together clinicians, scientists, students and researchers from diverse disciplines — but it won’t just be restricted to academia.
“It’s an opportunity for education… educating not just people at UW but policy makers and the public about what this means and what choices they want to make,” he said. “In this end, it’s really to their benefit. So we have to get people engaged in this.”
Meyn said now is “an exciting time” to be involved with this type of medicine. With the first human gene sequence published about 13 years ago, and genomics already being used in clinical settings in the past few years, “we’ve moved very rapidly in terms of applying knowledge,” he said.
“We’re still on the upswing in terms of diagnosing people, finding new disease genes on the cancer side,” he said, adding there’s a “real opportunity to push things forward.”
–By Alex Moe
WisBusiness>com
