TalkScience@BL: Engage, Inform, Debate, Inspire
Personal GenoME and Medicine: Hype or Reality?
A discussion with Alan Ashworth
September 2009
Alan Ashworth, fellow of the Royal Society and director of the Breakthrough Toby Robins Breast Cancer Research Centre introduced the discussion.
Listen now to a podcast of Alan's introduction.
On the night we considered a range of issues including:
• Can cheaper and easier access to personal genomic information really lead to a revolution in the targeting and tailoring of therapeutics?
• Will healthcare systems be able to adapt to ensure personalised medicine is a future reality rather than hype?
• Can the successes of personalised cancer medicine be replicated for other diseases?
• Are Direct-to-Consumer tests the future of genome-inspired healthcare or simply a flash in the pan?
• Without effective interventions, is ‘genetic self-knowledge’ merely a burden?
• Are post-genomic technologies outstripping the law? Are gene patents ever justified?
• Do we need a new brand of ‘personalised ethics’?
We have set up a dedicated forum on Nature Networks where you can participate in post-event discussion. There we have set out a few thoughts to keep the discussion going, but please feel free to raise your own issues.
Listen to many more podcasts from the TalkScience series.
