The brilliance of the human population is its diversity

Each of us is a product of genetic inheritance, a revised edition of generations past. Though we are remarkably similar as a species, individually we are coded with the instructions of variety.

Some of us are tall with blue eyes and we’ll lose our hair before we’re 30. Some of us are natural athletes. Some of us are more likely to get diabetes or heart disease or lung cancer.

When it comes to our health, we each are a unique minority, yet we are limited by a majority approach to health care. With all good intentions, medications are developed for the masses, joint replacements are created based on average needs, medical treatments are determined by overall outcomes, and clinical trials are randomized. It’s the only way we’ve known.

What if it didn’t need to be this way? What if we could inject individuality into more health care equations? What if there were a way to directly translate genetic discoveries in the lab into individualized trials and treatments?

Scripps Genomic Medicine is bridging the gap between discovery, translation and treatment. It begins by discovering and defining the genes that underlie susceptibility to disease.

There are more than 20,000 genes within 3.1 billion coding letters in the human genome, and even more variations. This has presented an incredible challenge for physicians and scientists around the world. With so many variables, how do you go about identifying which marker on what gene in which chromosome impacts a specific disease? Often times it’s been by accident; scientists were thinking they’d find one thing and discovered something completely different.

The key is narrowing down which genes and which markers are worth looking at and why. Real progress depends not on educated guesses, but on specific, quality genetic information and expert analysis.

Scripps Genomic Medicine is on the road to discovery. In collaboration with The Scripps Research Institute, we are creating a landmark biorepository for genetic research and study – a biological warehouse of genetic information. Working hand-in-hand with volunteers from the more than half million individual patients we care for each year, Scripps is genotyping and storing genetic data on thousands of individuals of diverse ancestry.

Once cataloged, the genetic information can be used to identify and better define those genes that play vital roles in human disease and medical conditions. As more and more data are collected, the opportunity to identify the genetic patterns of disease expands. Taken directly into drug discovery programs and gene-specific clinical trials, this knowledge will help to individualize treatment, personalize the experience and fine-tune health care as we know it.

A new era of research has begun.