‘Grand Challenge’ Initiative Making Strides in Precision Health
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowResearchers from Indiana University’s Precision Health Initiative say they continue to move forward in an effort to revolutionize the way clinical trials are conducted around the world. Launched in 2016, the $120 million initiative, which was the first to receive funding through the Grand Challenges program, is focused on getting the right treatment to the right patient at the right time.
Dr. Tatiana Foroud, executive associate dean for research affairs at the IU School of Medicine, says the initiative has made progress in two areas: triple negative breast cancer and osteosarcoma, a rare childhood bone cancer.
Foroud joined Dr. Sharon Moe, associate dean of translational science at the IU School of Medicine, to talk about the efforts made by the initiative.
In the fight against osteosarcoma, Foroud says Tyler Trent, the Purdue University graduate who passed away in 2019 after a lengthy battle with the disease, has helped researchers along the way with more than just generating awareness.
“First is he donated his tumors that could be then studied by researchers and a researcher at the IU School of Medicine, Dr. Karen Pollok, has been able to identify a group of drugs that can be used to slow the growth of his tumor,” said Foroud. “And why that’s important is that gives us new insight on how we could potentially treat other children and individuals who develop osteosarcoma.”
The Precision Health Initiative has also made strides in the fight against triple negative breast cancer, one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer. In late 2019, researchers developed a blood test to predict whether the disease will recur and which women are more likely to remain in remission.
“This is very exciting because it first of all points us a way that we can identify women at greatest risk and also use this in the development of new clinical trials,” said Foroud.
The Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute is playing a major role in the initiative. Moe, who is co-director of the institute, says the institute aims to provide an infrastructure for investigators to succeed by providing pilot funding, training for up-and-coming researchers, and other services to accelerate innovation.
“We’re taking ideas that researchers may have in the lab or different ways to deliver healthcare, different systems or methods or diagnostics and we figure out how to get it to patients and that requires a whole pathway of resources and experiments and studies and everything to get it there,” said Moe.
You can learn more about the Precision Health Initiative and its other areas of focus, such as preventing Type 2 Diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, by clicking here.