Genomic Medicine funding, Victoria Australia

[DebinOzinLondon]

Anyone have any idea what this means for CLLers?

petermac.org/news/peter-mac...

Chris/Neil?

Thanks

Deb

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

That's exciting news Deb and it's the first I've heard of it. It's a pity you didn't know about this a week ago or you could have asked Dr Con Tam!

Those interested can find out more from the link that Deb provided:

melbournegenomics.org.au/

That website has an excellent, brief and easy to understand overview of what genomics is:

melbournegenomics.org.au/ab...

Looks like it is early days for the Melbourne Genomics Health Alliance based on what I've read here:

melbournegenomics.org.au/ou...

Seems that they are concentrating on analysing your DNA to determine susceptibility to genetic diseases, not the DNA of cancerous cells, but note the last dot point: "helping us understand which patients with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) benefit from bone marrow transplants."

Worth keeping an eye on.

Thanks!

Neil

[Cllcanada Top Poster CURE Hero in reply to AussieNeil]

Most of the Whole Genome testing in CLL is being done in Spain...

biomedcentral.com/1741-7015...

ICGC icgc.org/icgc/cgp/64/530/826

CLL Genome Project cllgenome.es

[DebinOzinLondon in reply to Cllcanada]

I knew you two were the ones to ask about this! Nice to see some government funding being dedicated to it.

[SeymourB]

If you've already been diagnosed, the full genomic testing may seem moot. There are already some tests that determine how quickly one responds to some common drugs, such as blood thinners and psycho-active drugs, and even a 23andMe.com test can show some of that. We hope to see more research along those lines.

There is also the possibility that some types of CLL may run in families.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

So testing other family members for CLL genes may seem useful. But it may simply result in multiple family members watching and waiting together. What one wants in genomic medicine is what they call "actionable results" - information you can use to change how you live or start treatment now. Some people would rather not know about CLL status if it is early stage.

But this technology has many spin-offs that don't fall under the heading of "genomic", which concerns all of your genes. The most useful is Targeted Therapy - genetically testing only your mutated cells, and then designing a custom therapy to deliver drugs to kill only those cells. This is still being pioneered, and is expensive.

So at one end, testing as many people as possible for their whole genome may reveal subtle differences, with occasional discoveries of important mutations, while at the other end, testing only the mutated cells in affected people may allow more certain outcome of therapy.