A presentation about precision medicine will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10 in Holmes Hall, room 224.
“Precision medicine is medicine that is tailored to an individual’s genome, instead of a general statistic of how a medicine should work to treat a certain illness,” said Jacob Hafen, an FGCU student in charge of helping organize the event.
The event is being organized by FGCU students such as Hafen and is being hosted by The Clinical and Translational Genome Research Institute.
The Clinical and Translational Genome Research Institute is a nonprofit organization that aims to deliver medical innovations, improved treatments and new cures to patients.
“We are in the midst of a medical revolution,” Hafen said. “Today, medicine is given to patients because the medication should work to treat their symptoms. However, the same medicine does not work on every person.”
The topic of precision medicine will be presented by guest speaker Dr. Dan Handley, the scientific director of CTGRI.
“If a medication does not work to treat the symptoms of an illness, a patient can be in pain for way longer than they should be,” Hafen said. “CTGRI is trying to make medicine work with your genome, so there is not a wait time to change between medications.”
CTGRI’s purpose for hosting this event is for FGCU students and the general public to become aware of the work the institute is doing. So, the event will be open to any FGCU student or person that feels passionate about this issue.
CTGRI also offers several internships, which are open to interested FGCU students.
“Personally, I feel that personalized medicine is the next big leap in the medical world,” Hafen said. “Even though medicine is mostly successful today, making medicine that is specific to a person’s genome will make prescribing medication to patients much more successful and streamlined.”