Obama Proposes $215 Million “Precision Medicine Initiative,” A Massive Personalized Medicine and DNA Sequencing Effort; Obama Calls It “Greatest Opportunity for Medical Breakthroughs That We Have Ever Seen” (2012 Nobelist’s Comments Added)

by BioQuick Editor & Publisher Michael D. O'Neill (https://bioquicknews.com/node/34) Shortly after 11 am EST on Friday, January 30, 2015, United States President Barack Obama announced his $215 million proposed “precision medicine initiative.” This is a massive personalized medicine effort centered on the use of next-generation DNA sequencing that Obama said represents the “greatest opportunity for medical breakthroughs that we have ever seen." It will enable physicians to administer the “right treatment at the right time, every time, to the right person." "The time is right to unleash new wave of medicine," Obama said. A jointly authored commentary on the proposed initiative, from NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins (M.D., Ph,D.) and National Cancer Institute (NCI) Director Dr. Harold Varmus (Ph.D), is posted on the New England Journal of Medicine web site (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1500523). Please also see links to related popular press articles provided below. Dr. Collins is a former Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, leader of the Human Genome Project, and longtime physician-scientist-researcher, whose numerous seminal discoveries include identification of the gene for cystic fibrosis. Dr. Varmus is co-winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes. Dr. Varmus is also a former President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Caner Center (MSKCC) and former Director the NIH.
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