Bio-IT World: '
A Practical Precision Medicine Approach to Complex Chronic Diseases'
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'Based on unpublished data, the “strong expectation” of investigators is that all nine of the genes thought to be common to ME/CFS and long COVID will be a reproducible finding. The All of Us dataset used in the latest study had under 500 patients while an additional 1,500 patients populated the most recently released cohort of data, Gardner says, which will also permit a more detailed examination of reproducibility in general.
This soon-to-publish confirmatory study will be particularly significant for the ME/CFS community, which has long struggled to have their disease taken seriously by many health practitioners. “This is putting [ME/CFS] on a footing with and actually connecting it to the research going on with long COVID,” he says.'
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'PrecisionLife’s Mechanostic test for ME/CFS captures 199 unique single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and can predict disease “in the ballpark” (odds ratio of 4.5) with BRCA mutations (odds ratio of 5 to 7.5) for breast cancer, which is “unexpected in a disease with no prior genetic associations.”'
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'The combinatorial analytics approach was first developed in 2017, and one early target was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, says Gardner. Notably, PrecisionLife identified 24 key genes linked to “actively protective biology,” including the gene responsible for removing the neurotoxin homocysteine. This partially underpins last fall’s market approval in Japan of mecobalamin, a high-dose form of B-12 found to significantly slow disease progression, for pharmaceutical company Eisai.'
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'A series of clinical studies are planned for 1,000 patients, half with ME and half with long COVID, says Gardner. One aim is to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the Mechanostic tests and their ability to identify people at high genetic risk of disease development. Participants are being given results indicating their specific disease risk signatures and therefore the symptoms they are most likely to experience.
Another more ambitious goal is to search for repurposing treatments for ME and long COVID as quickly and cost effectively as possible, Gardner says. Participants are patients from the main Mechanostics trial with specific mechanisms driving their disease and a safe, well-tolerated generic treatment already identified.'
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'The company has extensively studied endometriosis, adenomyosis and related women’s health disorders where, again, several of the same genes show up—particularly those associated with the debilitating pain patients tend to experience.'