Era of Personalised Medicine Awaits
I refer to this BBC report on genomic screening.
According to the report, the speed of reading genomic information has increased due to advances in nanotechnology. How will this result in personalised medicines?
Well... imagine you were to visit the doctor and provided your blood samples. From there, they can extract your DNA, which is a very large double-stranded helical molecule representing your genetic blueprint. Human DNA contains about 3 billion base pairs, meaning that to know what information is encoded in your gene, you need to have to know the exact sequence of these 3 billion base pairs. DNA sequencing is akin to deciphering the alphabets that make up an extremely long passage and figuring out what the message it contains. With this information, the doctors can know what type of genetic diseases you are susceptible to. Curing such a disease could simply be a matter of replacing a part of the DNA sequence with the correct base pairs. Hence, the idea of "personalised" medicines. But to sequence 3 billion cells could take a long time - it took 10 years for many scientists to come up with the first draft of the human genome. So, the possibility of having personalised drugs based on our genetic code could take a while to materialise. Nevertheless, it is something worth looking forward to.
While we may marvel at the possible advances that western science may bring to us, the idea of "personalised" medicines is already a cornerstone of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). TCM emphaises on taking into consideration the patient's pre-existing health conditions and body type, which we termed as "体质", when performing diagnosis of sickness. As a result, it may be possible that two different individuals suffering from the same sickness (e.g. headache) can get two entirely different prescriptions. This idea is known as "同病异质" in TCM.
Prescription personalisation is also evident in the idea of "加减运用" when a Chinese physician writes a herbal formulation. For example, the physician can adjust the quantity of each herb in the formulation based on a desired effect or to suppress unwanted side effects, or he could also add additional herbs that is normally not used together in the formulation to treat side symptoms that accompany the main symptoms.
According to the report, the speed of reading genomic information has increased due to advances in nanotechnology. How will this result in personalised medicines?
Well... imagine you were to visit the doctor and provided your blood samples. From there, they can extract your DNA, which is a very large double-stranded helical molecule representing your genetic blueprint. Human DNA contains about 3 billion base pairs, meaning that to know what information is encoded in your gene, you need to have to know the exact sequence of these 3 billion base pairs. DNA sequencing is akin to deciphering the alphabets that make up an extremely long passage and figuring out what the message it contains. With this information, the doctors can know what type of genetic diseases you are susceptible to. Curing such a disease could simply be a matter of replacing a part of the DNA sequence with the correct base pairs. Hence, the idea of "personalised" medicines. But to sequence 3 billion cells could take a long time - it took 10 years for many scientists to come up with the first draft of the human genome. So, the possibility of having personalised drugs based on our genetic code could take a while to materialise. Nevertheless, it is something worth looking forward to.
While we may marvel at the possible advances that western science may bring to us, the idea of "personalised" medicines is already a cornerstone of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). TCM emphaises on taking into consideration the patient's pre-existing health conditions and body type, which we termed as "体质", when performing diagnosis of sickness. As a result, it may be possible that two different individuals suffering from the same sickness (e.g. headache) can get two entirely different prescriptions. This idea is known as "同病异质" in TCM.
Prescription personalisation is also evident in the idea of "加减运用" when a Chinese physician writes a herbal formulation. For example, the physician can adjust the quantity of each herb in the formulation based on a desired effect or to suppress unwanted side effects, or he could also add additional herbs that is normally not used together in the formulation to treat side symptoms that accompany the main symptoms.