COVID-19 and Precision Medicine

Dr. Joel Diamond, CMO of 2bPrecise, discussed the relationship between precision medicine and disease, including COVID-19. He noted how much we’re learning – and quickly – about how genomics and genetics impact the variability of responses in individuals not only to infection but to numerous diseases. 

As it pertains to COVID-19, are genetics one of the reasons some people fared very poorly with this virus, or why some people were on ventilators and recovered? Is the reason some people completely asymptomatic and others were incredibly sick and often died from what’s known as a cytokine storm (an immune response that overwhelms the body). Dishearteningly, we’re learning how some young people (who we previously thought were spared the worst of this disease) are experiencing a system inflammatory response that can cause heart damage and death. 

While many factors drive outcomes, genetics and individual susceptibility to getting the disease and being treated properly have a lot to do with how individuals respond and recover. Genes make us susceptible to health issues and protect us against disease and things in our environment, whether it's smoking or other drugs or things like that.

Aside from genetic predisposition to disease, the role of pharmacogenomics is becoming better understood as a predictor of outcomes. Historically in medical practice, we’ve focused a great deal on drug-drug interaction or drug condition interaction, including warnings about contraindications in our healthcare IT systems to prevent medical errors in hospitals and pharmacies. The next step is to look at these drug-gene interactions and understand why certain drugs are very rapidly metabolized and have very little effect, or why others are slowly metabolized and impact outcomes more overtly. In the pandemic, these considerations are significant to optimize care provided to COVID patients and to avert adverse drug-drug interactions in those with multiple underlying diseases (who are likely taking multiple medications prior to developing COVID-19).

You can hear more from Dr. Diamond in the Thursday, May 21st Best Practices Webinar here: https://youtu.be/2-LuXxU6CFA.