PROVIDENCE – Brown University will host a free one-day conference entitled “The Promise and Policy Implications of Personalized Medicine,” focusing on the use of individual genetic profiles to prevent, diagnose or treat disease.
The conference – slated for June 4 at the university’s Salomon Center for Teaching – is sponsored by the Division of Biology and Medicine, U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy and the Lifespan health care network. Registration is first-come, first-served.
The event is the fourth in a series of annual “Frontiers of Health Care” conferences organized and hosted by Kennedy and Brown.
“Personalized medicine was a compelling choice for this year’s conference,” Eli Y. Adashi, M.D., Brown’s dean of medicine and biological sciences, said in a statement yesterday. “The signs of this transformation in health care are increasingly apparent, from the growing use of genetic testing to the discovery of diathesis markers for heart disease and diabetes. The conference will explore the profound implications of personalized medicine for the public, physicians and policymakers.”
“There is great hope that personalized medicine will allow both physicians and patients to tailor their health care in the future to prevent and treat common diseases,” Kennedy added.
The conference will begin with a continental breakfast, opening remarks by Adashi and Kennedy, and a keynote speech by genomics pioneer Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Project. The closing address will be delivered by Dr. Mark B. McClellan, a former Medicare administrator and commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration who is now a visiting fellow at the AEI–Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies in Washington, D.C.
It will include a roundtable discussion – moderated by Charles R. Nesson, a professor at Harvard Law School – exploring the field’s challenges, ethical and privacy issues, and public policy implications.
“The Promise and Policy Implications of Personalized Medicine” is to meet at Brown University’s Salomon Center for Teaching, on the college green, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday, June 4. The conference is free but advance registration is required. For more information or to register, visit bms.brown.edu/news/fhc.
