I do not like green eggs and ham. I will not eat them, Sam-I-am.But if you found out you had a predisposition for a particular disease and eating more green eggs and ham would help you prevent it, would you eat them in a boat? Would you eat them with a goat?
And what if it weren’t Sam-I-am offering the emerald eats, but Sam-IBM? As in Sam Palmisano, CEO of IBM?
Palmisano spoke at the annual Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit this October and introduced IBM’s new Personal DNA Sequencer Project. Big Blue’s DNA transistor would be revolutionary.
IBM scientists are working to build a nanoscale DNA sequencer by drilling a hole just large enough to slowly pass a single strand of human DNA through a computer-like chip that would read the information contained in the genetic code.
“It’s like a barcode device for each strand of DNA,” Palmisano said.
A quick genetics primer: Each of us has the same set of about 20,000 genes, with slight variations (such as a gene that determines eye color). Each of the 50 trillion cells in our body contains our complete blueprint encoded in DNA. These DNA molecules are organized into 23 pairs of chromosomes, which are arranged into genes.
The goal is to record a person’s entire 3 billion-nucleotide DNA sequence in about an hour at a cost of between $100 and $1,000. By comparison, the Human Genome Project took more than a decade and spent about $3 billion to sequence the first human DNA strand in 2003.
Doctors could use IBM’s technology to identify a person’s genetic predisposition and tailor medicines most likely to help. The combined data harvested might lead to staggering advancements in new gene therapies to cure diseases.
IBM’s research brings up logistical and privacy concerns, but it truly has world-changing potential. Within three years, IBM says, it will have solved most of the device’s technological problems. (Watch IBM's video
here.)
I can’t wait for some Big Blue eggs and ham.
Similar projects at the summit included a $399 genetic testing kit from
23andMe. Customers can order the kit online. When it arrives, they spit into a tube, send it back and receive an analysis of their DNA in two to four weeks, the company’s co-founder, Anne Wojcicki, told the crowd of physicians and investors.
The 23andMe results show your risks for 118 diseases and traits, including breast cancer, Type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, Parkinson’s and even lactose intolerance. The report also provides ancestral information. It cannot tell you if you have a disease or will develop it, but it’s a relatively inexpensive way to acquire invaluable data to share with your doctor. As Wojcicki said, “People want to know!”
The genetic technology was part of a larger flowering of innovation showcased at the summit. Food and Drug Administration commissioner Margaret Hamburg declared that we live in a “period of revolution in life sciences and life science research.”
I saw a device from
Super Dimension that can locate spots on lungs and test them without surgery, a huge advance for patients whose routine CT scans turn up lung spots. Today, if such patients report no symptoms, they are likely told to get another scan in a few months to see if the spots have changed — leaving them worried about possible cancer until the next test.
Cancer was the 2009 summit’s topic, but the uncertainty of health care reform hovered over the meeting like a cloud. Several speakers expressed hope that reform would not deter innovation.
Schering-Plough CEO Fred Hassan told CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo that the United States is No. 1 in medical innovation. “No other country is even close,” he said. “We need favorable tax strategies for entrepreneurial efforts.”
Beth Seidenberg of Kleiner Perkins warned that venture capital “will flee from uncertainty” and said the United States should not copy the approach of Britain’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence, in which new drugs, devices and innovations are rejected if they are too expensive or serve too few people.
“Nobody related to innovation is participating in health care reform,” asserted Dr. Joseph Hahn, Cleveland Clinic chief of staff. “There is a battle raging within health care reform as to whether innovation is essential and to be nurtured or whether it is a financial burden that needs to be curtailed. It is time for the innovators to come to the table.”
Innovation is so important. You never know what will result from it. Who would have thought that a tabulating company such as IBM might someday help prevent you from getting a disease?
Health care reform that hinders innovation should not and could not pass. I would not like it here or there. I would not like it anywhere.
Dan Hanson (hanson@inside-business.com) says doctors, such as Cleveland Clinic chief wellness officer Michael Roizen, have a year to weigh in (pun intended) on the nutritional value of green eggs and ham: The 2010 summit topic is obesity and diabetes.