Personal genetic testing: Moving from reactive care to care that is predictive and preventive
House Calls for Healthcare Professionals: audio program
The United States government is in the midst of an extensive project to map the human genome. The results have wide-reaching implications, many of which impact healthcare organizations. A new understanding of genetics promises an exciting era of personalized, preventive medicine, but many clinicians and their patients are already taking advantage of widely available, and increasingly less expensive, personal genetic testing. How does genetic testing work? What do we currently know about it? How accurate is it at predicting future disease? And how might it change the ways physicians provide care to their patients and patients take charge of their health?
In this edition of House Calls, Bill Crounse, M.D., and his guests discuss how broader access to genetic testing may influence consumer behavior early in life to help avert future preventable diseases such as diabetes and cancer.
Vance Vanier, M.D., is the chief medical officer of Navigenics, a leading personal genomics testing company. He is also on the faculty of Stanford Medical Center and has spent several years with some of the most preeminent firms in the molecular diagnostics industry, introducing new genomic technology to clinical practice. Dr. Vanier received his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and completed his residency training at the University of California, San Francisco, and Highland Hospital in Oakland, California. He received an M.B.A. from Stanford University, as well as dual bachelor's degrees with honors.
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Eric J. Topol, M.D., is the director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, a National Institutes of Health-funded program of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Consortium. He is a professor at The Scripps Research Institute, Chief Academic Officer of Scripps Health, and a senior consultant cardiologist practitioner at Scripps Clinic. Dr. Topol has been recognized by the Institute of Scientific Information as one of the top 10 biomedical researchers in medicine during the past decade. He has more than 1,000 original, peer-reviewed publications to his credit and has edited over 30 books.
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Susan M. Leonelli, M.D., M.B.A., M.S., joined Microsoft's Health Solutions Group in 2006 as director of product marketing. She is currently focused on strategy and planning for Microsoft HealthVault, including solutions for consumers, hospitals, and physicians. Previously, Dr. Leonelli played a key role in the launch of Microsoft's new Healthcare Enterprise solutions, now known as Amalga. Dr. Leonelli attended medical school at the University of Illinois at Chicago and completed her residency training in internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona.
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Kelly Copland is a participant in the groundbreaking health study sponsored by Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) designed to assess the behavioral impact of personal genetic testing. The study provides genetic scans for participants and will assess changes in their behaviors over a 20-year period. Ms. Copland is 28 years old and lives in San Francisco, California. She volunteered for this study because she believes in being proactive about her health.
