España debe investigar.

Harnessing the Genomics Revolution

CAMBRIDGE – Just 13 years after the successful completion of the Human Genome Project, the power of genomics applications to spur innovation is already becoming apparent. Indeed, though the genomics revolution is just getting underway, it is becoming a transformative agent in the global economy – one that promises to bring far-reaching social and environmental benefits.

In the United States alone, the $3.8 billion in public funds invested in the Human Genome Project has already generated close to $1 trillion in economic returns and more than 300,000 jobs. According to the OECD, genomics will become a central component of many economic sectors, including health care, the environment, agriculture, animal health, biotechnology, alternative energy, forensics, justice, and security. With the pace of innovation continuing to accelerate, this prediction will likely be fulfilled even sooner than anticipated.

 

The area where genomics-driven innovations have attracted the most attention is health. Rapid progress toward truly “personalized medicine” is occurring, with patients’ DNA profiles being translated into more individualized, predictive, and preventive medical care.

Already, studies to identify genes associated with common diseases – including some that represent significant health, economic, and social burdens, such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity – are beginning to enable doctors to use patient DNA information to inform clinical care. And researchers are identifying genetic variations that influence the effects of drugs, allowing safer and more effective administration of medication to manage pain and treat some cancers, as well as cardiovascular and psychiatric diseases. 

Taking these developments a step further, the Precision Medicine Initiative, launched in the US last year, is pursuing innovative trials of targeted drugs for adult and pediatric cancers, introducing customized combination therapies, and honing its understanding of drug resistance. In the longer term, the project aims to create a research cohort of more than a million volunteers whose shared genetic data, biological samples, and lifestyle information will form the foundation for precision medicine in a large number of human diseases.

But health care is far from the only area influenced by the genomics-driven revolution. There have been game-changing developments in other fields as well, many with proven potential to help address global challenges, such as ensuring food security and safeguarding the environment in the face of a rapidly growing global population, expected to reach 9.6 billion in 35 years.

Selection of high-value traits using genomics is giving farmers, and the food industry in general, the tools to produce more and better foods. Rice crops in Southeast Asia, for example, can now be flood-resistant. Beef, dairy, and swine herds produce higher output. The burgeoning fishery and aquaculture sector is benefiting from species with better yields and greater resistance to disease and stress.

Moreover, by providing detailed information on biodiversity and the interactions within ecosystems, genomics is driving the development of innovative environmental-protection strategies.

Forests are a prime example. By broadening our understanding of commercially valuable traits, such as insect resistance, wood quality, growth rates, and adaptation to climate change, genomics has helped to improve the sustainability of tree breeding and forest management. Canadian and Chinese researchers are also using genomic analysis of the microbial communities living in hydrocarbon deposits to develop new bioprocesses that will make oil and gas extraction greener, by enhancing resource recovery, reducing water and energy use, and minimizing greenhouse-gas emissions. 

The promise of genomics is seemingly limitless. But if that promise is to be fulfilled, major challenges must be overcome. In health care, in particular, we need to continue generating solid evidence of the value of moving personalized medicine into routine practice. Furthermore, rigorous economic analyses are needed to guide policies on health-care coverage and reimbursement. Above all, important questions surrounding patient privacy, technology access, reporting of incidental findings, discrimination, and counseling must be answered, so that thoughtful and forward-looking public policies can be devised. To this end, mechanisms to ensure broad public discussion and participation must be strengthened. 

Even at this early stage, it is clear that genomics is set to transform science and technology and sustain a wave of far-reaching innovation. Now is the time for countries and regions to embrace genomics research and technologies, and to start translating them into effective solutions to major global, regional, and local challenges.

Gerardo Jimenez-Sanchez, Professor of Genomic Medicine, Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology, and Program Director of Genomic Medicine and Bioeconomy at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, is Executive President at Global Biotech Consulting Group.

Los Nacionalismos no son soluciones

Reinventing Europe

 

BERLIN – Since 2009, when the financial crisis that started in America in 2008 shook the eurozone to its core, crisis management has become Europe’s new normal. Indeed, crisis has followed crisis in Europe, and this is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Europe has had a financial crisis, a Greek crisis, a Ukraine crisis, and, since the late summer of 2015, a refugee crisis. And now, with the UK, one of the European Union’s strongest member states economically and militarily, holding a referendum on June 23 on whether to leave the EU (so-called Brexit), Europe could soon be facing a secession crisis.

Indeed, a massive crisis of trust vis-à-vis Europe and its institutions has developed in most EU member states, fueling a revival of nationalist political parties and ideas and a slackening of European solidarity. The re-nationalization of Europe is accelerating, making this crisis the most dangerous of all, as it threatens disintegration from within.

The EU’s political leaders – the heads of state and government of the member states and the leaders of the European Council and the European Commission – made a fateful decision in the wake of the financial crisis. They placed their trust in crisis-mode management, rather than developing a vision for Europe and a strategy to achieve it.

Strategic management of Europe would have required making the necessary compromises, which no doubt would have entailed political risks in all member states. Instead, EU leaders chose to let the reality of the various crises do the work for them, placing their faith in the force of circumstances. But this approach, born of cowardice and misplaced cunning, had its price, too: To its citizens, an EU that moves only in crisis mode is the very image of incompetence, unworthy of their confidence – no longer the solution to the old continent’s problems, but simply another problem.

After almost six decades of successful integration, Europe has become a large feature of everyday life – a political, economic, institutional, and legal reality. But all of Europe’s manifestations depend on the vitality of its underlying idea, of its soul. If this idea dies among Europe’s citizens and peoples, the EU will come to an end, not with a bang but with a long, torturous whimper.

Things cannot go on like this; too much – the future of our continent in a world of rapid change – is at stake. A policy of baby steps is no longer enough. Without a renewed vision of Europe and an effective approach to dealing with crises, the continent’s new (and old) nationalists will continue to gain in strength and jeopardize the entire project of peaceful integration on the basis of the rule of law. 

The Brexit referendum will point the way, both for the UK and for the EU as a whole. It will be followed either by sighs of relief (as I hope) or a cataclysm that rocks the EU to its core and brings disaster to the UK. But, however the British decide, Europe’s numerous crises need to be addressed.

The financial crisis is anything but over; it has only taken on a new political guise. Portugal, Spain, and Ireland have shown that democratic majorities are no longer willing to endure the cure-or-kill treatment of austerity politics. And the Greek crisis is coming to a boil again.

The euro might not survive. Despite signs of a moderate economic recovery in the eurozone, the gap between Germany and most other eurozone countries is widening and deepening. There is no longer any talk of convergence in the monetary union, and there hasn’t been for a long time.

And yet it is clear that if the euro fails, the whole European project will fail with it. Europe’s leaders know that the euro is still anything but crisis-proof, despite technical improvements achieved during the previous crisis. Unless a renewed grand compromise is reached between Germany and other eurozone countries, it never will be. In practice, this would mean reforming the eurozone on the basis of deeper political integration – obviously no mean feat.

The same applies to the EU’s joint security, protection of external borders, and a reformed European refugee policy. Here, too, effective political leadership requires a renewed vision for a united Europe in the twenty-first century – what it can and must provide, how it should be constituted, and what institutions and powers it requires. 

There is no reason for Europe to fear crises. They set things in motion and provide an opportunity for the EU to move forward and become stronger, provided one faces them without fear of the accompanying political risks.

Once the UK has spoken this June, Europe must give its answer – courageously and with a vision and real solutions. Nationalism is not the answer. Only genuine Europeans can ensure a peaceful, prosperous future for Europe.

Joschka Fischer was German Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor from 1998-2005