2008/04/10

CIC bioGUNE researcher, Ana María Aransay, gave a talk on Personalised Medicine as part of the "Darwin and Wallace" cycle

On 8 April in Bilbao, the head of the Genotyping Laboratory at the Functional Genomics Unit of CIC bioGUNE, Ana María Aransay, gave a talk entitled "Human evolution and illnesses" as part of the "Darwin and Wallace, 150 years of discovering evolution" cycle organised by CIC bioGUNE in collaboration with the British Council and the BBVA Foundation.

During her talk, Aransay referred mainly to the evolution of medical science, up to and including the medicine of the near future, which will aim to develop preventative and curative drugs 'tailor-made' for our individual genetic codes. This branch of medical science is known as Personalised Medicine.

The main difference between this new concept of medicine and more traditional approaches is that it consists of customising treatment based on a knowledge and understanding of the patient's individual genetic structure, as well as on an analysis of their symptoms. In contrast to current 'blanket' techniques, this new approach promises to improve the effectiveness of the treatments provided and to reduce side effects.