Aaron Ciechanover | Personalized Medicine: Revolutionary Τreatments and Βioethics

We are exiting the era where the treatment of many diseases follows a “one size fits all” approach, since doctors have started to realize that patients with apparently “same” diseases respond differently to similar treatments.

Gradually, we are entering the age of “personalized (or precise) medicine”, where the treatment is tailored according to the patient’s distinct molecular and biochemical profile. This era is characterized initially by the development of technologies essential to uncover each individual’s genetic profile and facilitate the design of novel, mechanism-based drugs to treat more effectively each subclass of the disease in question.

Aaron Ciechanover, the distinguished University Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology and Chemistry Nobel prize-winner, warns us that “personalized medicine” offers not only unique opportunities for treatment- it also raises some complex bioethical questions.

For example, who could guarantee privacy protection when the genetic information of large populations will become publicly available?

In his exciting talk at Athens Science Festival platform, Ciechanover discusses the opportunities and the bioethical issues of this new age in medicinal science.

The discussion is moderated by Zoe Cournia.