Ohio State Hosting Personalized Healthcare Conference

Healthcare leaders, federal policy makers, academic leaders, consumer and patient advocacy groups, and others with an interest will hear from recognized experts in the area of personalized health care. Industry leaders will discuss leveraging scientific discoveries from genomics and DNA research to improve health care outcomes and effectiveness.

“We are in the midst of a transformation in medicine and this year’s conference explores many of those changes, along with the great potential for predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory health care,” says Dr. Clay Marsh, executive director of the OSU Center for Personalized Health Care. “At the same time, we are providing a timely forum to address many issues high on the agenda of the current policy reform debate,” adds Marsh, who also is senior associate vice president for research in the Office of Health Sciences, and vice dean for research in the College of Medicine.

With a conference theme of “Transforming Health Care Through Personalized Medicine,” participating speakers include Dr. Leroy Hood, president, Institute for Systems Biology; Dr. Ralph Snyderman, chancellor emeritus, Duke University Medical System; Dr. Daniel Levy, director, Framingham Heart Study, and professor of medicine, Boston University School of Medicine; and Lawrence Lesko, director, Office of Clinical Pharmocology, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Speakers and expert panels will discuss the role of academic medical centers in advancing personalized health care in both research and clinical practice; personalized medicine and participatory health care; population genetics and heart risk profiling; developing a medicine model to advance personalized health care; how the patient-centered medical home model can improve patient health and strengthen the healthcare delivery system; consumer genetics, ethics and genetic counseling; developing a personalized cancer care policy agenda and its implications for health care reform; personalized cancer care – targeted therapeutics for diagnosing and treating hematological malignancies; and pharmacogenomics in clinical medicine.

Personalized health care utilizes gene-based information to understand each person’s individual requirements for maintaining their health, preventing disease and tailoring therapies. It incorporates knowledge of an individual’s environment, health-related behaviors, culture and values.

Complete information about the conference program, including registration and keynote speakers, is available at http://www.ced.osu.edu/PersonalizedHealthCare/.

Contact: Doug Flowers, Medical Center Communications, (614) 293-3737, or Doug.Flowers@osumc.edu