Leading researchers discuss
personalized medicine

6.12.2007
Molecular Diagnostics in Personalized Cancer Care:
Opportunities and Challenges

SPEAKER: Janina Longtine, MD, BWH, HMS

Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy in Personalized Medicine

SPEAKER: Carolyn Mountford, D.Phil, BWH, HMS

(No Video Available)

FORUM REPORT:

Researchers are moving steadily forward in understanding cancer and other diseases, but more research is required before “personalized medicine” becomes widely used.

Presenters at the June 12 Forum at Simches Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital were Janina Longtine, MD, chief of molecular diagnostics, Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, associate professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School and program director of the Harvard Medical School Molecular Genetic Pathology Training Program; and Carolyn Mountford, D.Phil, director of spectroscopy, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and visiting  professor in radiology, Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Longtine spoke on the subject of “Molecular Diagnostics in Personalized Cancer Care: Opportunities and Challenges.”

She said the rapid progress in identifying the genetic basis of disease, combined with technological advancement, has transformed diagnostic medicine. In cancer care, molecular diagnostics provides more precise classification of disease based on genetic mutations and/or altered gene expression, which in turn, provides predictive information, identification of tumors that are candidates for targeted drug therapy, and sensitive monitoring of therapeutic response.

Dr. Longtine said that such diagnostics are helpful in “providing the right therapy for the right patient at the right time,” but that cost can be a factor in the expansion of such a practice.

She said a drug such as Gleevec can be useful, but at $30,000 per year for treatment, it is used primarily in wealthy countries. Practitioners in poorer nations still use more mature methods, such as the bone-marrow transplant which is less expensive.

Dr. Longtine said that some research is slowed by the fact one private company might own the intellectual property rights to a promising therapy, and is uncomfortable with sharing the research with academics or researchers from other organizations.

Dr. Mountford spoke on the topic of “Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy in Personalized Medicine.”

She discussed how well-characterized chemical and molecular biomarkers can be used to detect, diagnose and image cancer and other disease states, potentially non-invasively and in-vivo.