Gene research leads
to cures, expert says

He says a turning point, when
data can be interpreted, will come

Translating human genome data to resolve medical and genetic problems is the challenge facing the next generation of scientists, says an internationally recognized genetic researcher.

"We are bombarded with so much information that our ability to collect data is outpacing our ability to interpret it," said Dr. Stephen J. O'Brien, chief of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity, National Cancer Institute.

In an interview during the Hawaii Bioscience Conference held here Thursday and Friday, O'Brien said there is "promise of a turning point" in genetics similar to developments triggered by quantum mechanics and the silicon chip.

"We can look at the blueprint, the script responsible for the machinery of life, with opportunities virtually in every field of biology," he said.

The 13-year Human Genome Project (HGP), coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health, was completed in 2003. One of its main goals was to identify all of the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA.

With the genome project completed, scientists must move forward to discover the genetic basis of diseases for treatment and prevention, he said.

Diseases such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis have genetic as well as environmental components, he said. "The more we understand the components, the better equipped we'll be to diagnose and prevent these diseases."

O'Brien is noted for research in human and comparative genetics, evolutionary biology, AIDS, retrovirology and conservation of species.

Besides prolific scientific articles, he is the author of a popular book entitled "Tears of the Cheetah and Other Tales from the Genetic Frontier." A reviewer said the 14 evolutionary stories of cheetahs and other animals "are the equivalent of genomic Aesop's fables."

O'Brien was among more than 300 of the nation's top researchers reporting bioscience advances at the conference, held at the Hawai'i Convention Center to celebrate the opening of the new John A. Burns Medical School at Kakaako.

Highlighting talks Friday were Dr. Irving Weissman, director of the Institute for Cancer and Stem Cell Biology and Medicine at Stanford University, and Nobel Laureate David Baltimore, president of the California Institute of Technology.

Weissman's discoveries have led to new research on stem cells and new treatments for different diseases, such as leukemia.

He said in a speech that there is hope in the future to develop drug therapies to target cancer stem cells, without damaging good cells.

California's $3 billion initiative to establish a California Institute for Regenerative Medicine will transform research and fund new stem cell lines, Weissman said. "It is meant to fund what the feds won't fund by executive order," he said.

Baltimore, in a speech, described phenomenal changes in biomedical research since 1960 with new instruments and unprecedented knowledge.

But, he said, "One of the great failures of contemporary research is the inability to find vaccines for HIV."

"For a long time we looked to industry for solutions, and it has not worked. Industry simply is not the engine of innovation in biology," said Baltimore, head of the National Institutes of Health AIDS Vaccine Research Committee from 1996 to 2002, said.

He said AIDS research has been poorly coordinated, but the AIDS Foundation is leading an effort to fund laboratories in an integrated program to find an HIV vaccine. The NIH also is running a vaccine research center, he said.

O'Brien said increased understanding of complex diseases and interactions has changed the way science is being done. "It is no longer a shallow wish to come up with specific treatments for cancer."