Personal Medicine is the Way Forward for Better Health

Stressing on the benefits of personalized medicine, Dr Sarabjeet Mastana, from Loughborough Universit in UK, Tuesday said that India lags behind in genomic studies. “If we want success in personalized medicine, we must understand anthropological genomics of the Indian population,” said Dr Mastana, from the School of Sports, Exercise and Health Science Department at the university. Speaking on the theme “Anthropological Genomics in Health and Disease: Hope, Hype and Reality” at a colloquium organized by the Department of Anthropology at Panjab University, he said that personalized medicine is the way forward for better health.

Talking to Chandigarh Newsline, Dr Mastana said, “The benefit of personalized medicine is that every person will get suitable medicine according to his or her genetic makeup. If any medicine is not suitable for a person, he runs the risk of being adversely affected by it.” “A drug can be suitable for an European population but not for an Indian population.” he added. Mastana said that Indian population is unique as it has genomic unity in diversity but India lag behind in genomic studies. “The international genomic databases too don’t have information about Indian population. Lot of people are working on genomic data now. There are several new institutes that have been set up to focus on this field and we are all set to make big strides in few coming years,” he said. Advancements in science are making genetic analysis more cost-effective, Mastana added. – Indian Express