FutureMed Day 3: Personalized Medicine and Design in Healthcare

Day 3 of FutureMed and this long day was centered around personalized genomics/medicine, design in healthcare and the future of medical intervention.

Also see Medgadget and the Futuremed Magazine for recaps. And here is day 1 and day 2.

• David Ewing Duncan quantifies himself and has had 22 500 genetic traits analyzed, 22 hours of brain MRI, and over clinical 1000 tests. He used the expression environgenomics for describing the importance of the environmental factors in developing diseases. He also had an experiment when his brain was analyzed with MRI and looked for signs of excitement while watching different types of films. In the future, we might be able to get film recommendations based on our brain MRI.
• Nic Volker was the first boy to be saved because of next generation sequencing.
• In 2014, cost of whole genome sequencing will be the same as an X-Ray.
• Biocurious and iGEM bring biotechnology to very young students around the world. Procedures in molecular biology that have been used by researchers could be used by students now.
• Beers that fight cancer or contain caffeine can be brewed with genetically modified yeast species.
• Microbes can create circuits by producing silicon on a Petri dish.
• Andrew Hessel: The Beijing Genome Institute sequences more genomes than all the other centers around the world together.
• Biotech is going to be the new IT industry.
• If cells are cell phones, viruses are the applications.
• Atul Butte: With Gene Expression Omnibus, students can download genetic data as they download music from iTunes. (video below)
• Ajay Verma said that we should be prepared for EEG controlled games (Star Wars Force Trainer).
• Catherine Mohr talked about surgical robots.

Simple suggestions about controlling aging.

Surgical workshop (I haven’t practiced that since the first years of medical school).

Music played on a smartphone can induce dancing movements electronically on the leg of a cockroach. Biohacking!

Finally, Lucien Engelen arrived.

Data storage of the Apollo program in an old McDonald’s on this campus.