Success Stories
Spectacular advances in medicine have recently been made possible thanks to genetics and genomics research. Emblematic examples include whole genome sequencing for the diagnosis of rare diseases, cancer treatments tailored to the genetic make-up of the tumor, non-invasive prenatal tests, and the newly marketed PCSK9 inhibitors to prevent heart attacks.
The examples above demonstrate that genomic research can improve clinical care in two ways:
New markers to improve diagnosis, prediction, prevention and tailored treatment of diseases.
New therapies.
Our Challenge
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The discovery and development of new biomarkers and new therapies follow both highly complex, decade-long, risky and extremely expensive paths made of a series of well-defined steps, each separated by critical decision marking.
Our Opportunity
The various steps which lead to a new drug are illustrated in the Figure below, with examples of where genomics can help make decisions and the junctures.
Our Vision
Our vision is to build up a large infrastructure which will capitalize on the presence of functional, coding variants which are enriched within the French-Canadian and the large multiethnic populations in Montreal. Detailed phenotypic characterization and pharmacologic interventions on carriers of such specific mutations will then provide unique contributions to the discovery and development of novel therapeutics that target specific genes, gene products or pathways.
Our Strategy
The Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Genomic Medicine entitled “Genes to Drug Target for Next-Generation Therapies” is the vehicle, jointly funded by the Canada federal government, McGill University and the Province of Quebec, by which we will realize our Mission and Vision. Funding has been allocated for a period of 7 years, starting August 1st, 2019.
In that effort, we will partner with the McGill Genome Center and the Department of Human Genetics and other departments of the Faculty of Medicine at McGill, with its affiliated hospitals, with other academic centers and, when appropriate, with industry.
Our Objectives
Our approach is to identify a limited number of specific projects, which will capitalize on McGill strengths and which shall demonstrate the value of genomics in medicine. Then we will expand the genomic medicine CERC program to the larger McGill community.
We will combine in-silico analysis of large genetic epidemiology, rare diseases, and pharma databases, functional genomics and genomically driven clinical investigations.
We plan to initially focus on inflammation, oncology and cardiometabolic conditions, with an expansion towards neurological diseases.