- UNAM has just opened a genetic database with information of great technical, scientific and population value.
- In recent years, the value of public health has been enhanced thanks to the knowledge of genomics, metabolomics.
- For this study, he added, families from the Coyoacán and Iztapalapa mayoralties were visited house by house.
The UNAM has just opened a genetic database with information of great technical, scientific and population value that will serve to discover genetic risk factors for the development of diseases or premature death in Mexicans, which will contribute to making better decisions in the field of public health. .
The Prospective Study of Mexico City is called (MCPS): Analysis of 140,000 genomes, in which UNAM participates, through the Faculty of Medicine (FM), in collaboration with the University of Oxford, England.
During the inauguration of the International Symposium that bore the title of the aforementioned investigation, the director of the FM, Germán Fajardo Dolci, said: “This sequencing, this characterization of the population, gives us the ability to understand different diseases, as well as aspects of the health and well-being of the population.”
The project, he recalled, began years ago and is an important part of the entity. “For us it is a pleasure to collaborate with the University of Oxford and with Mexico City. This is a long-term alliance that looks to the future, and that we must celebrate, especially academically, making a stop along the way to know where and how we are, and where we should go in this important study”.
When it started, in the 90s, some genomics issues loomed, but not with the speed with which it has grown and the importance it has today. The work has produced publications of the highest level in the world, he noted.
The head of the Experimental Medicine Research Unit (UIME) of the FM, Jaime Berumen Campos, stressed that it is an investigation that includes data from 140,000 people; “The study of demographic and clinical data cannot be done by just anyone. This large cohort has borne much fruit.”
The scientist explained that part of the genome of these individuals has been studied, such as the exome (one percent of the genome where genes are encoded) and, recently, the study of the complete genome of 10,000 individuals was concluded.
The experimental work was carried out at the Regeneron company in New York, and “we have participated in the discussion of the data and very soon we will have the opportunity to analyze these large amounts of information.”
The member of the FM, Roberto Tapia Conyer, highlighted that the public strategies “They need to be supported by evidence, solid, tangible information, which makes it possible to ensure that the interventions that are taken are the most appropriate for the circumstance and the moment.”
In recent years, the value of public health has been enhanced thanks to the knowledge of genomics
In addition, he added, in recent years the value of the public health thanks to the knowledge of genomics, metabolomics (or the study of chemical processes involving metabolites) and the influence that has the innumerable of factors in the health condition, without forgetting the social determinants.
Even, he pointed out, today we can speak of modern, avant-garde public health, with personalized interventions, where there is the ability to differentiate each individual.
Tapia Conyer explained that a cohort is defined as a population or a subset of itwhere an observation is made for a certain period, in a detailed way, to identify what happens in it and find factors that influence what we want to know: in this case the possibility of remaining healthy, of generating a disease or dying.
For the genetic basis, it was abounded, House-to-house visits were made to families from the Coyoacán and Iztapalapa municipalities, in order to obtain the information to build the large databases. In more than 160,000 people, the economic part, health risks (alcohol consumption, tobacco, etc.), clinical history, and gynecological and obstetric history in the case of women were determined. From this information, 13 publications in high-impact journals have been derived.
In the next few days, he announced Tapia Conyerwill hold a meeting with a team of national researchers interested in exploiting the databases, which are public.
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