Page 12 - Genomic Medicine in Emerging Economies

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CHAPTER 1

Genomic Medicine in Developing

and Emerging Economies:

State-of-the-Art and Future Trends

Catalina Lopez-Correa*, George P. Patrinos** ,†
*Genome British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; **University of Patras
†
School of Health Sciences, Patras, Greece; United Arab Emirates University,
Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates

INTRODUCTION

Genomic medicine refers to those medical interventions that employ the infor-
mation encoded in an individual’s or patient’s genetic material to amend medi-
cal interventions, such as drug prescription and preventive medical testing, and
guide lifestyle decision-making, aiming to improve the overall quality of life.
According to Hippocrates of Kos (460–370 BCE) “…it is more important to
know what kind of person suffers from a disease than to know the disease
a person suffers,” highlighting the fact that the unique genetic composition
of every individual directly impacts on his health. Hence two individuals suf-
fering from the same disease and treated with the same drug and drug dose
might present with different treatment efficacy, from (1) being fully treated,
(2) to not being treated at all, or worse, (3) to developing mild to serious and
often life-threatening adverse drug reactions. Ineffective treatment can lead to
adverse reactions and toxicity events in certain patients, which not only causes
the deterioration of their overall health status but also leads to increased treat-
ment costs. Greater knowledge regarding the genetic variation between individ-
uals may potentially help in selecting the appropriate treatment. Because of the
limited resources in health care systems, it is necessary to consider the justifica-
tion of current spending and future investment in public health care. Genomic
medicine is a subset of precision (or personalized) medicine, which constitutes
an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into
account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each per-
son. This approach allows clinicians to predict more accurately what treatment

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