{"id":49506,"date":"2011-11-02T12:10:01","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T16:10:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=49506"},"modified":"2012-06-25T14:52:13","modified_gmt":"2012-06-25T18:52:13","slug":"cicats-retreat-takes-up-personalized-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/11\/cicats-retreat-takes-up-personalized-medicine\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini-Retreat Looks Toward CICATS\u2019 Future"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dr.<\/a>
Dr. Cato T. Laurencin (right) welcomes Dr. Gualberto Rua\u00f1o, invited from Hartford Hospital to give the keynote address on personalized medicine at the CICATS mini-retreat. (Chris DeFrancesco\/UConn Health Center Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Personalized medicine took center stage at a mini-retreat of the Connecticut Institute for Clinical and Translational Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As plans by Jackson Laboratory of Bar Harbor, Maine, to build an institute for personalized medicine on the UConn Health Center campus<\/a> move forward, dozens of Connecticut researchers gathered for a two-day series of talks and meetings at the Cell and Genome Sciences Building for what Dr. Cato T. Laurencin<\/a>, CICATS CEO, called an opportunity to \u201cunderstand where we are and where we want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marc Lalande<\/a>, professor and chairman of the Department of Genetics and Developmental Biology, says the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine will have \u201cpotentially a major impact\u201d on CICATS, in research and beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn education, we could probably train students in this community who will be on the forefront of genomic medicine,\u201d says Lalande, who chairs the CICATS Scientific Advisory Board<\/a>. \u201cAnd all the health care providers in the region, we could have an imprimatur that the Hartford region is the place to come for certain diseases around genomic medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"In<\/a>
In his welcoming remarks, Sanford Cloud, chairman of the UConn Health Center Board of Directors, said \u201cadvance\u201d is a more appropriate word than \u201cretreat\u201d to describe CICATS\u2019 direction. (Chris DeFrancesco\/UConn Health Center Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

UConn established CICATS as an alliance of regional hospitals and community health care organizations in 2009. In that spirit of partnership, Dr. Gualberto Rua\u00f1o, director of Hartford Hospital\u2019s Genetic Research Center, was invited as the keynote speaker.<\/p>\n

\u201cConnecticut is wired for personalized medicine,\u201d Rua\u00f1o says. \u201cThere\u2019s a network now for 200 community-based clinicians using personalized medicine. We have the connectivity, with a web-based portal, and we\u2019ve moved this technology to real-time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rua\u00f1o says the mental health community has adopted real-time personalized medicine as a standard of care, and that Hartford\u2019s GRC has helped nearly 3,000 patients throughout the state in the last three years. It uses mental health as a model, and it centers on medication.<\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/a>
Tom Babor presents a summary of his qualitative evaluation of CICATS. (Chris DeFrancesco\/UConn Health Center Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe know that DNA is the foundation of life,\u201d Rua\u00f1o says. \u201cDNA also can be used for decision support in the clinic, in terms of selection and dosing of medication. It\u2019s almost like how a GPS helps you with routing. There are 80 brands of mental health medications. Personalized medicine helps us match the drug\u2019s needs with what the patient has. With it we analyze which roads to avoid and which roads to take.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lalande says Connecticut\u2019s investment in bioscience is what drew Jackson Laboratory, and it comes on the verge of what could be a revolution in medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn its simplest form, there\u2019s what\u2019s called pharmacogenetics, and it\u2019s essentially that if you look at a population and you give them a drug, all these different people are going to respond optimally to a different dose,\u201d Lalande says. \u201cAnd a good part of that response could be a genetic predisposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

CTSA Update<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A work group discusses education and mentoring at the CICATS mini-retreat. (Matthew Cook\/UConn Health Center Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

UConn will apply again this year for a Clinical and Translational Science Award<\/a> from the National Institutes of Health, a major grant once seen as critical to the future of research at the University, and part of the basis for the establishment of CICATS. Laurencin says the focus of CICATS has widened.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CTSA grant is still very important, but it\u2019s also important for us to build CICATS to provide value and resources for the entire region,\u201d Laurencin says. \u201cThe ability to have productive grants in the future depends on the bioinformatics and biostatistics that CICATS provides.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Laurencin is quick to point out a bigger picture.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstitutions like Hartford Hospital, Saint Francis and Connecticut Children\u2019s are all in the room together, and this is the real triumph.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Follow\u00a0the UConn Health Center<\/a> on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a> and\u00a0YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Connecticut Institute for Clinical and Translational Science brings regional research partners together, with personalized medicine among the points of focus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":49512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[57,2010],"class_list":["post-49506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-02 04:29:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49506"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61931,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49506\/revisions\/61931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/49512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49506"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=49506"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=49506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}