Sergey Brin’s Search For a Parkinson’s Cure

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Jeffrey Newman

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/science-as-sear/

This WIRED article, about Sergey Brin’s use of data-mining and social networking for the advancement of medical science is really worth reading for so many reasons. It explores the interface between data mining and medicine;  the slowness of present medical research under traditional paradigms and connects social networking to medical research and more. Brin, co-founder of Google is married to a genetic researcher who founded 23andme http:www.23andme.com a unique DNA profiling company which gathers information from millions of volunteers via created social networks. They send out kits and surveys and the DNA and data sent back is entered into a massive databank from which computer data analysis programs are used to find correlations and trends which might help scientists save time in their work. The work, while rudimentary now, opens up enormous potential for understanding the mechanism of action of various disorders and the genetic basis and potential environmental and lifestyle mitigators for  individuals. It’s short term benefits might be most useful to translational medicine experts, whose function is to advance medicine from the lab to the patient, speeding the time frame for actual therapeutics. People in this field create bridges from theory to practice and are attuned to the benefits of trend analysis and thinking in non-traditional ways. The data-mining may also be of benefit to basic science and understanding of cell function and growth, which itself should not be diminished as  basic science and traditional medical research and translational medicine are all necessary components to disease cure. However, the WIRED article uses aspirin an excellent example in demonstrating how many major advances in medicine are discovered by accident. Invented in the early 20th century, aspirin was mainly a pain reliever and it was used for decades before its benefits for heart attack prevention were discovered by mistake in the 1960’s and early 70’s. Now, it is a key part of the medical arsenal against cardiovascular disease. There are many such examples and Brin’s thought is that by using data-mining for swift analysis of connections and trends in the medical histories, responses to drugs, urine and sputum samples and surveys of hundreds of thousands of volunteers, we can truncate the time within which such discoveries are made. The surface is just being scratched. I have a good friend who is a scientist and researcher with his own lab. I sent him the article and asked his thoughts. Stay tuned.