Dr. Thomas Hudson, president and scientific director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
July 8, 2010
Megan Ogilvie
HEALTH REPORTER
In 1991, as a post-doctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Hudson was among the first scientists to work on the Human Genome Project.
“For me, this has been 20 years, not just 10 years, on the project,” he says from his office in Toronto. “I take a long view.”
Hudson saw the map mature from idea to reality. He says the journey to sequence the human genome was a revelation for how to do collaborative science and that the map provided the basis for learning about disease biology.
That few cures have emerged from the map so far is to be expected since developing new drugs is a lengthy process.
“Finding genes has become easier and easier, but finding therapies still takes a long time,” Hudson says. “We know it takes 15 to 20 years to make a drug, so the time between the discovery of the gene and bringing new therapies is at least that long.”
Families at high risk of rare diseases have benefited from the human genome project as genes for their conditions have been identified and included in screening programs.
The genetic picture is less clear for complex diseases, including cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
“I think what was underestimated was the heterogeneity of these diseases — how many genes there are for colon cancer or diabetes or asthma,” Hudson says, noting scientists are just at the beginning of fully understanding how the interaction between genes and environment leads to disease.
In many ways, he says, the Human Genome Project is still ongoing. The challenge for scientists today is to sift through the huge amounts of data the map has generated.
“In cancer, we have more than 1,000 cancer targets, or cancer biomarkers, that have been published. But only about nine have been validated to use for predictive testing or in selection of drugs.
“I think genomics is leading to better information. Now it’s trying to find out which information is hype, which is useful scientifically and which is useful clinically. My view is that this is the tip of the iceberg. We need to give it more time.”
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