Cheap Tech = Future Cures:
Ok, so what do you get when you add entrepreneurial prospecting, big data, big analytics, high-speed robo-testing and gene-sequencing?
The next wave of crowd-driven boutique drugs based on large DNA data banks.
So earlier, we told you that for the Jet-Lag drug, UCSD used a robotic tester on 120,000 possible switches to find only 3 keys.
And before that, 23&Me had used its pattern-sniffers to come up with 15 indicators out of 14 Million to find night owls & early-birds.
Well, 23&Me will be at that game again soon to create the very future of medicine… And they’re hiring-from and partnering-with industry heavyweights like Genentech right now as a start.
Anything That Needs Fixing An Algorithm Will Eventually Find:
Imagine if they could send out their little pattern-matchers out through even more of their data, like out to All 1,000,000+ people in their set, and start looking for the DNA-tags of anything at all that might need fixing.
And then find out by some survey again, which people seem to have which problems.
Put the two together, and BAM! Chocolate-meets-peanut-butter! You’ve got your correlation between what individual genes, -or maybe groups of 15 genes like before- show markers the most & where people have the highest probability of an issue.
Inside Data Isn’t The Only Source Or Comparison:
Now, then take that idea Outside the company & start sniffing through all the research studies & papers out there to find out where some of the most promising leads are in each field,
Guess what targets those guys were shooting for in the body, like which specific genes & proteins,
Mash that in-together with your already-awesome Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of Big-Data Patterns, and now Double BAM!, -you have a guess at a good path to go down, trying to make a pill to fix that problem!
Proven Patterns Are Products Or Contracted-Projects:
At that point, they could either sell the prospect+data to a big biotech/partner, or even hire out a contract-lab to do the formulation & testing. -Why build a giant testing infrastructure, if you can just rent one?
Expensive or not, $1Billion in research per drug or not, This is the route 23&Me is looking to go down.
And although cures & miracle-drugs will not happen overnight, it Will absolutely change the face of fixing people’s serious health problems for the foreseeable future.
The Digital Detective Will Soon Think For Itself:
The only likely innovation after this would probably be some kind of super-smart pattern-program that can “think” for itself and learn from the success or failure of the trials that happen when that (23&Me DNA+Health Problem Survey+Marker-Pattern-Match+Outside Research Drug & Target Match) loop all happens.
The advantage of that is the algorithm will probably explore & discover opportunities that not even newly-minted Chief Science Officer Sheller might think of.
-Ok & then next we’ll have bespoke-customized meds for the specific individual.
In 100 Years, This Will All Be Taken Care-Of Beforehand:
And then of-course –100 years from now-, we’ll just do like the guys at vSauce & just have all our genes very carefully edited to avoid all those problems in the first place; perhaps even before birth.
-The complexity of which to avoid all other problems that could happen as a result of those edits will also be plotted-out by a super-smart Intelligent-Pattern-Matcher-Script, too.
Put on your shades, because the future’s so bright, you’re gonna need ’em!
Check out the rest of the details at the Links:
Photo Credits: “Robot 1”, by Juan Bernardo
Links:
• Source(s): 23&Me-Drug Discovery | Forbes
• via: PopSci
• More Coverage: Bloomberg | Time
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