• Imagine if, instead of dispensing a “one size fits all” pill to treat your ailment in its broadest sense, your pharmacist “printed out” a highly customized medication formulated exactly to target your specific disease on its genetic level, taking into account your own body’s unique biometrics, current health conditions and your own genomic profile? Such a precise treatment might be far more effective, in a shorter timeframe, with fewer side effects.
• What if doctors could extract cells from your immune system and supercharge them, reintroducing them into your body to fight a cancer or an infection more effectively and completely? Such a treatment might carry fewer risks of rejection and crippling side effects than established forms of transplant and allow vulnerable patients to beat their disease faster, with lesser depletion of body systems.
• Transplant patients wait on long lists for the privilege of a second chance of a donated organ, but what if we could coax patients’ stem cells to grow into graft-able, customized tissues using 3D-printed scaffoldings? The lab could become a new kind of fertile field where we cultivate life-saving and life-changing transplantable tissues, such as replacement bladders, livers, tracheas, bones, vascular or even skin tissue.

Futuristic as they may sound, these are all examples of current explorations in the world of precision medicine and the rapidly expanding array of new options for the treatment of complex and destructive diseases of all kinds, from the most common human cancers and diseases to the rarest of genetic conditions, and everything in between.

A panel of some of the world’s leading experts will come together to discuss this next frontier of healthcare at the HPC Matters Plenary on Nov. 14th and is open to all registered attendees and exhibitors (must show your badge).

Scheduled participants include:

• Dr. Mitchell Cohen, Director of Surgery, Denver Health Medical Center; Professor, University of Colorado School of Medicine.
• Dr. Martha Head, Senior Director, The Noldor; Acting Head, Insights from Data at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals
• Dr. Warren Kibbe, Director, Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (CBIIT); Chief Information Officer; Acting Deputy Director; National Cancer Institute (NCI)
• Dr. Dimitri Kusnezov, Chief Scientist & Senior Advisor to the Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration
• Dr. Steve Scott, Chief Technology Officer, Cray Inc.

“Enabling innovations in precision medicine are increasing capacity and creativity in biomedical informatics, combining with exciting discoveries in gene sequencing, molecular biomarkers, and the relatively young science of proteomics, the study of proteins and their interplay with disease and human health,” said Steve Conway, a supercomputing analyst from IDC who will also lead the panel. “Emerging and more precise biomedical research tools are advancing discovery, while efforts to ethically collect, analyze and share the data behind disease are also positioning scientists to find the next new treatments.”

According to Conway, precision medicine has been a hotspot of innovation for a while now, and the interdisciplinary work of medical researchers and computer scientists is bearing fruit in clinical settings already. In fact, the U.S. government has invested $210 billion over the past few years through its Precision Medicine initiative, and earlier this year announced the Cancer Moonshot initiative in an effort to improve treatments and ultimately cure cancer.

“Truly transformative discoveries are happening, and those discoveries are driving powerful shifts in how we combat disease and make people’s lives better,” he stated. “These leading minds will discuss how combining supercomputing technology with research and physician input will improve quality of life, increase efficacies and mitigate or eliminate the burdens of disease for millions of patients.”

HPC Matters Plenary Date/Location: 5:45-6:45 p.m. Monday, Nov. 14 in Ballroom-Full at the Salt Lake City Convention Center. The session is open to all registered attendees and exhibitors (must show your badge).

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Source: SC16