Honourable Mention: Clara Podmore Data Sharing Essay
How do you imagine the future of data sharing in healthcare or research? This post was written by Clara Podmore as one of the honorable mentions for our data sharing essay competitions. Since the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953 by Watson and Crick, research in the field of human genetics has progressed at an incredible pace and is now clearly impacting the way medicine is being practiced and taught. The vision is that better understanding of genetics will not only allow identification of individuals at risk of developing a given disease and hence enable prevention, but that it will also allow personalisation of medical care to patients. For example, treatments will be prescribed more appropriately to patients based on their genetic information, hence improving drug response while decreasing the number or risk of side effects of medication, such as potentially fatal drug reactions. In addition, the identification of mutations, which are faults in DNA which may lead to disease, will provide a better understanding of the disease process and hence provide new targets for drug development. In this present time, when obtaining a DNA sample is a fairly non-invasive procedure and can be done simply by taking […]