faster cures for all
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Faster Cures For All
Geoffrey H. SiwoCo-Founder Fit2CureLurie Medical Research Center
Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
A century of exponential progress in Health
In 100 years, Life expectancy increased 100%
93% reduction in child mortality
Time from bench to bedside much shorter
~200 years since discovery of scurvy-lemon juice association to implementation
Faster time to clinic, last 100 years
But….
7 million children die before age of 5
Bench to bedside still takes too long
$1 Billion 90% Failure
17 years
>10,000 Monogenic diseases
We don’t even have data for most of these diseases
Cystic Fibrosis
>95% of diseases have no cures
Most medicines don’t work in most people
Allen Roses, GSK VP Genetics
Why?
Human Genetic Diversity is Massive
Current system can’t cope
We must empower millions to be part of discovery
Can we really?What if we do?
Are we ready for it?Is our policy ready for it?
Can we?
~3 billion people online by end of this year
What if each computer/ mobile was a lab?
Yes, it’s possible…
2003: Undergraduate in Africa doing computational modeling of HIV on a pay-to-go computer
… in Africa
2003 to 2005: organized Bioinformatics training for fellow students
2010: Students in 2003 group organize First Virtual Bioinformatics Conference in Africa
…in USA
• 15 year old Jack Andraka develops pancreatic cancer test: 100 times more sensitive and 28 times cheaper
Even more complex experiments will be possible
Virtual Physiological Human
Virtual Heart- Cardiod project
• Near-cellular resolution Real-time simulation of the electrophysiology of the human heart
Virtual Brain
These complex experiments will come to your computer
Everywhere
628,000 members2.5 million devices796,000 years of computing
Something from the Nobel prize in Chemistry 2013
>Half a billion people play computer/ video games for
at least 1 hour a day
Why not solve science problems in games?
Fit2CureA lab and a scientist on
every computer
Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination
With Co-Founders Ian Sander and Victoria Lam
FILE NDA: FDA approval (2-3yrs)
Identify disease
Isolate protein involved in disease (2-5yrs) Foldit
Find a drug effective against disease protein (2-5yrs)
Preclinical Testing (1-3yrs)
Formulation & Scale-up
FILE IND: Human clinical trials (2-10yrs)
Fit2Cure
Drug discovery pipeline
Game interface
Competition! + Social Impact
Compete with friends!
In the future:For our top scoring players, we will be donating (real) money to an approved research center or rare & neglected disease institute of your choosing, and in your name.
Emergent patterns in play trace
• Expectation-maximization (EM) based mining of player data
-user interface design - novel scientific insights
Tim
e (M
ins)
HIV-1 Protease
Players can do real science!
Drug discovery
algorithmsDrug
Binding simulation
modelsI.P. of integrating
human cognition
AnalyticsWeb-based
gaming sessions
New InsightsNew Drugs
Design your medicine in future
Connecting Fit2Cure to Your Genetics: Fit2CureMyDisease
• Fit2Cure links personal genome data from the company 23andMe
• Fit2Cure can alert you when you are playing with a protein in which you have mutations or allergic drug reactions
Print your own medicine
Or send to robot scientists online to make it and mail it
to you
Remote controlled chemistry lab
Hypothesis generating and testing robot scientists
Adam- The Robot Scientist
• Adam designed hypotheses, experiments and tested them to discover function of novel yeast genes
Who owns the discoveries?
Who decides which disease should be studied first?
Should players be compensated?
What if players design dangerous chemical from game?
Discoveries are going to happen faster than policy
What are the challenges?
• Fast discovery will outpace our ability to build policy
• Policy must anticipate, there will be no time
• Central regulation will be extremely difficult since tools will be available to many
What are the opportunities?
• Allow millions to engage in experimentation in what affects them
• Democratized and rapid discovery
• Realistic simulations of your own health (Personalized medicine)
• Preparing the world for an unknown pandemic
Charles Edison Fund
DynamoidApps
Fit2Cure Players
Acknowledgements