Chaired by Abner Notkins, NIDCR

Main Auditorium, Natcher Conference Center

Medicine is undergoing a paradigm shift from diagnosis and treatment to prediction and prevention.   In the area of prediction several approaches are making it possible not only to predict the likelihood of developing certain diseases, but also the associated complications and response to treatment.  The presentations will describe: (1) how the human genome has opened up a broad spectrum of predictive approaches for both simple and complex genetic diseases by the analysis of individual genes, SNPs and haplotypes;  (2) how protein and RNA microarrays are providing new insight into the nature, course and prognosis of certain ongoing diseases (e.g., cancer); and (3) how autoantibodies which now are know to be present years before the clinical onset of a number of autoimmune diseases (e.g., type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus) are being used as predictive markers to enter high-risk subjects into therapeutic intervention trials.  The symposium will conclude with a discussion of the cost-effectiveness and ethical pros and cons of predicative medicine.

Program:

Genes as Predictors
Francis Collins, NHGRI
                                                            
RNA as Predictors
Francesco Marincola, CC

Proteins as Predictors
Lance Liotta, NCI         
                          
Autoantibodies as Predictors
Abner Notkins, NIDCR                        
                          
Ethical Issues
Ezekiel Emanuel, CC