WHAT ARE PRECISION BIOTHERAPEUTICS AND PERSONALIZED MEDICINE, AND HOW IS IT REVOLUTIONARY?

Precision biotherapeutics is highly individualized therapy designed at a personal level for each individual like gene therapy, biotherapeutics helps to design biomarkers at the molecular level, target therapy, immunotherapy(CAR-T cell therapy, TCR) with evolving fields like big data and bioinformatics, system biology(evaluation of genomes turned sophisticated). The 4th gen revolution in biology is synthetic biology(from CRISPR CAS-9, Creation of an organism from scratch, CAR-T, TCR) turned into more precise medicine.

What DBT & Indian govt doing for precision medicine – The Indian Genome Variation database project in 2003 provided genetic data on over a thousand genes from 15000 individuals across India, National Biopharma Mission, launched in 2017 with a core focus on precision medicine, treatment of chronic Myeloid Leukemia now costs ₹3,000-4,000 per month.

Genome India Project, launched in 2020, is a recent initiative that aims to collect 10,000 genetic samples to build a reference genome and further advance precision medicine which finished on 27th February 2024 from whole genome sequence to create a database for Indian genetic diversity (it is 1st modern genomic revolution which lay the foundation for precision biotherapeutics and how) – Every govt, institute, lab want to study the Indian genetic diaspora because Indian population genetic dynamics where 1.4 billion plus people exhibit variation in SNP which create genetic map.

PROBLEMS & BIOTHERAPY

As TCR-T & CAR-T have been part of personalized medicine, they are still not good enough to solve multiple myeloma, leukemia (EX: CAR-T can’t be used for soft tissue like the brain(neuroblastoma) and TCR-T in hard tissue bone(Osteosarcoma) in future personalized biotherapeutics can solve multiple carcinomas by targeting at the molecular or metabolic level at the same time at the individual level.

CHALLENGES & FUTURE PROSPECTS

SNPs are an actual challenge while studying huge populations with genetic diversity where technology plays a critical role like a lab on a chip/Biochip and liquid biopsy can be automated with machine learning models and AI for identifying patterns tailored at individuals based on genetic profile, lifestyle, Environmental Factors by studying genetic data design predictive medicine.

Lab on a chip(loc) can run multiple tests parallely with high throughput screening to help track real-time monitoring like patients undergoing Car-t or TCR therapies with minimal samples and precise drug delivery with controlled drug flow to target.

FUTURE – Development of neoantigen, Nanocarriers for immunotherapy, personalized organ models.

MANOJ REDDY

University/College name : Sathyabama University